muzzle, first with one foot, then another, trying to unswallow the
quills in his tongue, blinking hard, uttering little painful grunts and
whines as he rubbed his head upon the ground or on his forelegs. Rolf
held him while Quonab, with a sharp jerk, brought out quill after quill.
Thirty or forty of the poisonous little daggers were plucked from his
trembling legs, head, face, and nostrils, but the dreadful ones were
those in his lips and tongue. Already they were deeply sunk in the soft,
quivering flesh. One by one those in the lips were with-drawn by the
strong fingers of the red man, and Skookum whimpered a little, but he
shrieked outright when those in the tongue were removed. Rolf had hard
work to hold him, and any one not knowing the case might have thought
that the two men were deliberately holding the dog to administer the
most cruel torture.

But none of the quills had sunk very deep. All were got out at last and
the little dog set free.

Now Rolf thought of vengeance on the quill-pig snugly sitting in the
tree near by.

Ammunition was too precious to waste, but Rolf was getting ready to climb
when Quonab said: "No, no; you must not. Once I saw white man climb
after the Kahk; it waited till he was near, then backed down, lashing
its tail. He put up his arm to save his face. It speared his arm in
fifty places and he could not save his face, so he tried to get down,
but the Kahk came faster, lashing him; then he lost his hold and
dropped. His leg was broken and his arm was swelled up for half a year.
They are very poisonous. He nearly died."

"Well, I can at least chop him down," and Rolf took the axe.

"Wah!" Quonab said, "no; my father said you must not kill the Kahk,
except you make sacrifice and use his quills for household work. It is
bad medicine to kill the Kahk."

So the spiny one was left alone in the place he had so ably fought for.
But Skookum, what of him? He was set free at last. To be wiser? Alas,
no! before one hour he met with another porcupine and remembering only
his hate of the creature repeated the same sad mistake, and again had to
have the painful help, without which he must certainly have died. Before
night, however, he began to feel his real punishment and next morning
no one would have known the pudding-headed thing that sadly followed the
hunters, for the bright little dog that a day before had run so joyously
through the woods. It was many a long day before he fully recovered and