112 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



protruding on all sides. A dog that understands the 

 business will manoeuvre round the porcupine till he 

 gets an opportunity to throw it over on its back, 

 when he fastens on its quilless underbody. Aaron 

 was puzzled to know how long-parted friends could 

 embrace, when it was suggested that the quills could 

 be depressed or elevated at pleasure. 



The next morning boded rain ; but we had become 

 thoroughly sated with the delights of our present 

 quarters, outside and in, and packed up our traps to 

 leave. Before we had reached the clearing, three 

 miles below, the rain set in, keeping up a lazy, mo- 

 notonous drizzle till the afternoon. 



The clearing was quite a recent one, made mostly 

 by barkpeelers, who followed their calling in the 

 mountains round about in summer, and worked in 

 their shops making shingle in winter. The Biscuit 

 Brook came in here from the west, — a fine, rapid 

 trout stream six or eight miles in length, with plenty 

 of deer in the mountains about its head. On its 

 banks we found the house of an old woodman, to 

 whom we had been directed for information about 

 the section we proposed to traverse. 



"Is the way very difficult,'' we inquired, "across 

 from the Neversink into the head of the Beaver- 

 kill?" 



"Not to me; I could go it the darkest night ever 

 was. And I can direct you so you can find the way 

 without any trouble. You go down the Neversink 

 about a mile, when you come to Highfall Brook, the 

 first stream that comes down on the right. Fol' 



