Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/97

 As it chanced at this moment, a hungry weasel—the most insatiably bloodthirsty of all the wilderness prowlers—was just approaching the root of the old maple, nosing out the somewhat stale trail of a rabbit. As his keen ear caught these telltale sounds from within the tree, he stopped short, and his malignant little eyes began to blaze. Then he glided around the great trunk, halted just below the hole, and sniffed discriminatingly at the strong, fresh scent upon the bark. But at this point he hesitated—and it is not usual for a hungry weasel to hesitate. The scent was porcupine; and a grown-up porcupine was a proposition which not even his audacity was prepared to tackle. The sound from within that tempting hole, to be sure, was the voice of a baby porcupine. But was the baby alone—or was the mother with it? In the latter case, he would as soon have jumped into the jaws of a lynx as enter that hole. The fresh scent on the bark offered no solution to the problem. Was it made in coming out or going in? He sniffed at it again, growing fiercer and more hungry every moment.

Suddenly he heard behind him a dry rattling of quills, and a confused noise of squeals and chattering grunts. The mother porcupine was hurrying across the moist turf, gnashing her jaws, and looking twice her natural size with every