But
the porcupine, squealing and grunting, with disrupted anatomy trying
feebly to roll up into its ball-protection, flicked out its tail again,
and again the big cat squalled with hurt and astonishment. Then she fell
to backing away and sneezing, her nose bristling with quills like a
monstrous pin-cushion. She brushed her nose with her paws, trying to
dislodge the fiery darts, thrust it into the snow, and rubbed it against
twigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up
and down, in a frenzy of pain and fright.
She sneezed continually, and her stub of a tail was doing its best toward
lashing about by giving quick, violent jerks. She quit her antics, and
quieted down for a long minute. One Eye watched. And even he could not
repress a start and an involuntary bristling of hair along his back when
she suddenly leaped, without warning, straight up in the air, at the same
time emitting a long and most terrible squall. Then she sprang away, up
the trail, squalling with every leap she made.
It was not until her racket had faded away in the distance and died out
that One Eye ventured forth. He walked as delicately as though all the
snow were carpeted with porcupine quills, erect and ready to pierce the
soft pads of his feet. The porcupine met his approach with a furious
squealing and a clashing of its long teeth.
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