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Updated: June 25, 2025
Whether Kagh did not care for tobacco, or whether some new fancy at that moment took possession of him, no one can tell. At any rate he nosed the pipe from its place, scattered the tobacco to the four winds, and then shambled from the tent and disappeared among the trees. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep in a poplar sapling.
Here travel was easier and he made better time, though it could not be said that he hurried. He had not gone far upon the trail when he heard behind him a soft pad, pad. At the sound he paused a moment to stare indifferently, expecting to be given a wide berth, for, though Kagh seldom takes the offensive, even the savage lynx, unless crazed by winter hunger, will let him severely alone.
With a snarl he scrambled up the tree, where he crouched upon a branch, glaring down at the animated leaf-pile. Kagh shambled around the tree, his nose to the ground as if hunting for something. Then he continued on his placid way, disappearing down the gray vista of the forest, apparently ignorant of the fact that there was a lucivee in the woods.
Fortunately, however, the cruel barbs failed to reach their mark, for, an instant before the swing, the small bear received a cuff which sent him sprawling into the bushes, and Mother Bruin stood in the trail confronting the porcupine. Kagh, like most of the wilderness folk, knows that there is a vast difference between a full-grown bear and a furry, inquisitive cub.
Buoyed up by his hollow quills he soon reached the shore, none the worse for his sudden bath, save for his sorely ruffled feelings. For the time being his hunger for lily-pads had been satisfied but, as he shambled out of the swamp toward the dryer woods, he grunted complainingly. A dim light among the trees warned him of the approach of day, and Kagh looked about for a place to take a nap.
Near the camp a rabbit had crept timidly from the forest and was sitting erect upon its haunches, its quivering nose testing the wind, its bulging eyes missing nothing that went on around it. Kagh paid no more attention to the rabbit than to the bush under which it sat.
Kagh sampled the axe-helve and, finding to his liking the faint taste of salt from the hand of the man who had wielded it, he succeeded in rendering it almost useless before his interest flagged. His inquisitive nose now drew him to a small bag of tobacco beside which lay a much blackened cob pipe.
Kagh reveled in succulent lily stems and buds, and as he feasted he uttered little grunts of satisfaction. Here he would probably have been content to spend the remainder of the night had not an interruption occurred. Another porcupine crawled out upon the same log and proceeded confidently toward the choice position at its farther end.
In a very short time Kagh had succeeded in gnawing a hole large enough to permit his entrance into the storehouse. Then indeed he found himself in rich pasturage. The first thing he came to was a small basket of eggs, a delicacy which he prized highly. When these were neatly reduced to shells, he gnawed a hole in a barrel near by and sampled the little stream of flour which ran out.
He suffered agony until his master, aroused by the outcry, came to his relief. Holding the struggling dog firmly with both hands, the Hermit extracted the quills with his teeth. It was a painful process and both were glad when the last quill was out. Meanwhile, Kagh continued on his placid way toward the black forest wall, just beyond the rail fence.
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