f
a dead branch, or the splitting open of a tree-trunk, torn apart by the
frost. And by and by, in spite of himself, the half-breed's eyelids
began to droop.

But somebody else was awake--awake, and tempted with a great temptation.
The porcupine--not ours, but the other one--had caught the fragrance of
coffee and bacon. Here were new odors--different from anything that had
ever before tickled his nostrils--strange, but indescribably delicious.
He waited till the land-lookers were snoring, and then he started down
the tree. Half-way to the ground he encountered the cloud of smoke that
rose from the camp-fire. Here was another new odor, but with nothing
pleasant about it. It stung his nostrils and made his eyes smart, and he
scrambled up again as fast as he could go, his claws and quills rattling
on the bark. The half-breed woke with a start. He had heard
something--he was sure he had--the wolves were coming, and he gave the
white man a punch in the ribs.

"Wake up, wake up, m'shoor!" he whispered, excitedly. "The wolves are
coming. I can hear them on the snow."

The white man was up in a twinkling, but by that time the porcupine hod
settled himself in a crotch, out of reach of the smoke, and the woods
were silent again. The two listened with all their ears, but there was
not a sound to be heard.

"You must have been dreaming, Louis."

The half-breed insisted that he had really heard the patter of the
wolves' feet on the snow-crust, but the timber cruiser laughed at him,
and lay down to sleep again. An hour later the performance was repeated,
and this time the white man was angry.

"Don't you wake me up again, Louis. You're so rattled you don't know
what you're doing."

Louis was silenced, but not convinced, and he did not let himself go to
sleep again. The fire was dying down, and little by little the
smoke-cloud grew thinner and thinner until it disappeared entirely. Then
the half-breed heard the same sound once more, but from the tree
overhead, and not from across the snow. He waited and watched, and
presently a dark-brown animal, two or three feet in length and about
the shape of an egg, came scrambling cautiously down the trunk. The
porky reached the ground in safety, and searched among the tin plates
and the knives and forks until he found a piece of bacon rind; but he
got just one taste of it, and then Louis hit him over the head with a
club. Next morning the land-lookers had porcupine soup for breakfast,