hoot him?" I asked, unbundling my
rifle somewhat reluctantly.

"Of course--that's understood."

I think even then I would have spared Porky's life, but at that moment
he ran a little way up the tree. There was something about that slight
movement that stirred the old savage in me. I threw my rifle to my
shoulder, and with hasty aim fired into the center of the black bunch.

I saw it make a quick, quivering jump, slip a little, and cling fast.
There was no stopping now. A steady aim at the black ball this time, and
a second shot, followed by another convulsive start, a long slide, then
a heavy thudding fall at our feet--a writhing and a twisting--a moaning
and grieving as of a stricken child.

And it was not so easy to stop this. I sent shot after shot into the
quivering black, pin-cushioned ball before it was finally still--its
stained, beautifully pointed quills scattered all about. When it was
over, I said:

"Well, Eddie, they may eat up the whole of Nova Scotia, if they want
to--woods, islands and all, but I'll never shoot another, unless I'm
starving."

We had none of us starved enough to eat that porcupine. In the first
place he had to be skinned, and there seemed no good place to begin. The
guides, when they came up, informed us that it was easy enough to do
when you knew how, and that the Indians knew how and considered
porcupine a great delicacy. But we were not Indians, at least not in the
ethnological sense, and the delicacy in this instance applied only to
our appetites. I could see that Eddie was anxious to break his vow, now
that his victim was really dead by my hand. We gathered up a few of the
quills--gingerly, for a porcupine quill once in the flesh, is said to
work its way to the heart--and passed on, leaving the black pin cushion
lying where it fell. Perhaps Porky's death saved one or two more trees
for the next Nova Scotia fire.

There were no trout for luncheon at our half-way halt. The brook there
was a mere rivulet, and we had not kept the single small fish caught
that morning. Still I did not mind. Not that I was tired of trout so
soon, but I began to suspect that it would require nerve and resolution
to tackle them three times a day for a period of weeks, and that it
might be just as well to start rather gradually, working in other things
from time to time.

I protested, however, when Del produced a can of Columbia River salmon.
That, I said, was a gross insult to every fish in the Nova