Return to Kenai 



his head must have been at an angle as the 

 bullet struck him. For instead of penetrating 

 the skull it had glanced off the bone, and I 

 found it under the scalp on his forehead. The 

 second bullet hit him low down in the neck as he 

 turned. A curious fact about these two heads 

 was that both horns on the near side were mal- 

 formed in almost identically the same way, prob- 

 ably from an injury when the horn was growing. 

 I now hurried back to Hunter to help him 

 with the first head, whilst Elia and Shanghai 

 did the honours for the second one. I found my 

 guide, philosopher, and friend had more than 

 three parts finished his gory task, but wanted 

 help to sever the head from the neck. At last we 

 got the neck and skull separated, and started 

 back for camp, where we found the boys with 

 the head they had brought in. The tongues 

 and strips of meat from the haunches we hung 

 up in the smoke of the fire in order to dry them ; 

 the limbs of the trees over the fire were festooned 

 with meat which would take a couple of days 

 and nights to dry sufficiently to bear packing. 

 The boys ate their porcupine, cooking it whole 

 over the fire, first having burnt off the quills in 

 the flames. It does not look a very appetizing 

 morsel, and after tasting a bit of the hind 

 quarter I decided that I much preferred moose, 

 which is, I think, the finest meat I have ever 



eaten. 



271 



