THE WINTER WOODS 161 



" If that wasn't a Woodchuck trail by the road, 

 what sort of a broad, low-crawling beast made it ? " 



" A Porcupine, most likely," said Olaf. " There are 

 a few straying about still, though it is rather far south 

 for tliem." 



" Porcupines ? I thought they were ^lenagerie ani- 

 mals, — very dangerous ones who chase people and 

 shoot them all full of sharp spikes like a.rroAvs, that 

 grow on their backs ! I hope they won't come after us. 

 Cactus prickles are awful, when they get in your hands, 

 but Porcupine spikes must be worse." 



"Nez has a Porcupine in a pen up at his camp, so 

 you can see it. They do not shoot their quills. When 

 a Porcupine is frightened, he humps his back and draws 

 his head down between his fore paws like a Turtle tr}-- 

 ing to get into his shell. Then all the quills on his 

 back stand out like a sort of shield, and if anything 

 tries to grab or bite the Porcupine, that thing will 

 surely get its mouth and paws full of spikes that hold 

 on like fish-hooks. He has an ugly square sort of a 

 tail, too, all covered with quills, tliat he uses for a club 

 when he is angry, and a blow from it drives the barbed 

 spikes far into the tlesh of his enemy." 



" Mighty queer things, these Porcupines," said Air. 

 Blake. " Sort of living pincushions with the pins put 

 in point up. I meddled with one when I was a boy, 

 and I haven't forgotten it yet, — the pins went in point 

 first and stuck there heads down ! " 



" What good are they, daddy ; do they have fur or 

 make meat, or eat bad insects, or belong to a guild ? " 



"They seem to be of no particular use to House 

 People, though the Indians are fond of their meat and 



