doubt, deal a smart blow with it. An old hunter with
whom I talked thought it aided them in climbing. They are inveterate
gnawers, and spend much of their time in trees gnawing the bark. In
winter one will take up its abode in a hemlock, and continue there till
the tree is quite denuded. The carcass emitted a peculiar, offensive
odor, and, though very fat, was not in the least inviting as game. If
it is part of the economy of nature for one animal to prey upon some
other beneath it, then the poor devil has indeed a mouthful that makes
a meal off the porcupine. Panthers and lynxes have essayed it, but have
invariably left off at the first course, and have afterwards been found
dead, or nearly so, with their heads puffed up like a pincushion, and
the quills 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, monotonous 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. Follow up it to Jim Reed's shanty,
about three miles. Then cross the stream, and on the left bank, pretty
well up on the side of the mountain, you will find a wood-road, which
was made by a fellow below here who stole some ash logs off