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Updated: June 25, 2025
Under the influence of a warm south wind the sunlit hours became musical with the steady drip, drip of melting snow, while new life seemed to flow in the veins of the forest creatures grown gaunt under the pinch of hunger. Only Kagh, the porcupine, had remained full fed, but Kagh had been unusually blessed by a kind Providence, in that every tree held a meal for him in its soft inner fibers.
At sight of Kagh he paused a moment; then he went on, his quills raised. Kagh looked up from his feasting, astonished that any one should thus intrude upon his hunting-ground. And then on the end of the old log in the tamarack swamp was fought a bloodless battle, a conflict mainly of pushing and shoving.
About noon Kagh awoke and, crawling to the opening of the log, looked about him. As a rule the porcupine travels and feeds by night, but Kagh was a creature of whims and he decided that he had been fasting quite long enough. Accordingly he set out in a leisurely search for food, loafing along the base of a sunny ledge of rock.
For the first time since leaving his spruce tree the evening before, Kagh hurried. He blundered along the trail in a way which would have scandalized the other forest inhabitants, among whom silence is the first law of preservation.
He lay still, his small eyes shining dully among his quills. The cub regarded him for a moment; then he advanced and reached out an inquisitive paw toward the queer-looking ball. For this Kagh had been waiting. There was a lightning swing of his armed tail which, if it had reached its mark, would have filled the paw with deadly quills.
Kagh, the porcupine, was scornful of man and feared but one beast, the one who now advanced toward him along the wall. That long, silky fur, jet black save for two broad white stripes running down the back, and that plumy tail, could belong to but one creature.
Calling her cub, she shambled off through the bushes, the youngster casting many a backward glance at this little, but seemingly very dangerous creature. Kagh went on his way well satisfied with himself. As before, he traveled leisurely, pausing often to browse or to stare at some larger animal upon whose path he chanced.
So, as Kagh backed in, the fox backed out, incensed but helpless. In a very few moments the porcupine was fast asleep, his conscience quite untroubled. As the sun rose higher, a bloodthirsty weasel thrust its pointed nose into the log and glared with red eyes of hate upon the sleeping porcupine, then went his way, spreading terror and destruction among the smaller wood folk.
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