Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/102

 body were for his protection, but this armed tail was his one weapon of offense—a weapon with which, at a single stroke, he could fill an enemy's mouth or paws with a hundred barbed and poisonous needles. And the peculiar deadliness of these needles, large and small alike, lay in their power of swift and inexorable burrowing. Once their subtle points penetrated the skin their innumerable microscopic, scalelike barbs would begin working them inward through the muscles, setting up violent inflammations as they went, till they would reach some vital part and put their wretched victim out of his misery.

So far in his career young Quills had had no occasion to test the efficiency of that formidable tail of his, as a weapon, though from time to time he would stretch himself elaborately, leg after leg and claw after claw, ruffle up all his spines as if to see that they were in working order, and lash out alarmingly with the aforesaid tail by way of keeping it efficient and ready for action. And now, as luck would have it, the first enemy he was to encounter was the very one against whom his best defenses were of least avail—namely, man himself. But fortunately for young Quills, and for this, his brief biography, the man in question was neither in need of meat (least of all, of such harsh meat as porcupine!)