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Toomai leaned forward and looked, and he felt that the forest was awake below him awake and alive and crowded. A big brown fruit-eating bat brushed past his ear; a porcupine's quills rattled in the thicket; and in the darkness between the tree stems he heard a hog-bear digging hard in the moist warm earth, and snuffing as it digged.
This was a sign of friendship; harmony followed, and war and bloodshed were thought of no more. It was happy for us that our white faces and calm behaviour produced the effect it did on these people; in another minute our bodies would have been as full of arrows as a porcupine's is full of quills.
The porcupine's great chisel-like teeth, which are quite as formidable as those of the woodchuck, he does not appear to use at all in his defense, but relies entirely upon his quills, and when those fail him he is done for. I once passed a summer night alone upon the highest peak of the Catskills, Slide Mountain. I soon found there were numerous porcupines that desired to keep me company.
Other sounds there were which they did not understand so well, and to most of which they gave little heed the scream of the rabbit when the big gray cat leaps on him from behind a bush; the scolding of the red squirrel, disturbed and angry at the sight, and fearful that he may be the next victim; the bark of the fox; the rasping of the porcupine's teeth; and oftenest of all the pleasant rustling and whispering of the trees, for by this time the sun and the south wind had come back and done their work, and the voice of the leaves was heard in the land.
The giant did as she requested, and the horse bore the slain boy's body along the road to the forest. Outside the city they met the little old woman who was really Nossa Senhora. She took the parts of the lad's body and anointed them with the porcupine's oil. Then she held them tight together. They stayed securely joined. "Are you lacking anything," she asked the boy.
Immediately beneath the favourite bow of the chief, and encircled in a sort of magical ring of spears, shields, lances and arrows, all of which had in their time done good service, was suspended the mysterious and sacred medicine-bag. It was highly-wrought in wampum, and profusely ornamented with beads and porcupine's quills, after the most cunning devices of Indian ingenuity.
Thus, if by accident, one give out, he has another animal to rely upon. And if very successful he may have furs enough to load them both on his return. His costume consists of a hunting shirt of the soft and pliable deerskin, ornamented with long fringes and often dyed with bright vermilion. Pantaloons of the same material are also ornamented with fringes and porcupine's quills of various colors.
So marched the chasseurs by, but the wide applause persisted as yet other hosts, with deafening music and perfect step and with bayonets back-slanted like the porcupine's, came on and on, and passed and passed, ignoring in grand self-restraint their very loves who leaned from the banquettes' edges and from balustraded heights and laughed and boasted and worshipped.
Her food consisted of plants, the bark of trees, and fruits of different kinds; and then there were succulent roots and plants to be found and dug out of the ground, and these provided both food and drink, for the moisture was quite enough to quench the porcupine's thirst. After this Pero rested a little, for she was very, very tired.
He now commenced ascending, still holding the porcupine's tail in his teeth; taking good care not to brush too closely against the quills. `Surely, thought we, `he cannot climb up, carrying a body almost as big as himself! It was not his intention to climb up only to one of the lowermost branches and the next moment he had reached it, stretching his long body out on the limb, and clutching it firmly with his cat-like claws.
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