eir 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 Beaverkill?"

"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 the top of the ridge last winter and drew them out on
the snow. When the road first begins to tilt over the mountain,
strike down to your left, and