We had lain down some half hour, and I was just on the threshold of sleep, ready, as it were, to pass through the open door into the land of dreams, when I heard outside somewhere that curious sound,—­a sound which I had heard every night I spent in these woods, not only on this but on former expeditions, and which I had settled in my mind as proceeding from the porcupine, since I knew the sounds our other common animals were likely to make,—­a sound that might be either a gnawing on some hard, dry substance, or a grating of teeth, or a shrill grunting.

Orville heard it also, and, raising up on his elbow, asked, “What is that?”

“What the hunters call a ‘porcupig,’” said I.

“Sure?”

“Entirely so.”

“Why does he make that noise?”

“It is a way he has of cursing our fire,” I replied.  “I heard him last night also.”

“Where do you suppose he is?” inquired my companion, showing a disposition to look him up.

“Not far off, perhaps fifteen or twenty yards from our fire, where the shadows begin to deepen.”

Orville slipped into his trousers, felt for my gun, and in a moment had disappeared down through the scuttle hole.  I had no disposition to follow him, but was rather annoyed than otherwise at the disturbance.  Getting the direction of the sound, he went picking his way over the rough, uneven ground, and, when he got where the light failed him, poking every doubtful object with the end of his gun.  Presently he poked a light grayish object, like a large round stone, which surprised him by moving off.  On this hint he fired, making an incurable wound in the “porcupig,” which, nevertheless, tried harder than ever to escape.  I lay listening, when, close on the heels of the report of the gun, came excited shouts for a revolver.  Snatching up my Smith and Wesson, I hastened, shoeless and hatless, to the scene of action, wondering what was up.  I found my companion struggling to detain, with the end of the gun, an uncertain object that was trying to crawl off into the darkness.  “Look out!” said Orville, as he saw my bare feet, “the quills are lying thick around here.”

And so they were; he had blown or beaten them nearly all off the poor creature’s back, and was in a fair way completely to disable my gun, the ramrod of which was already broken and splintered clubbing his victim.  But a couple of shots from the revolver, sighted by a lighted match, at the head of the animal, quickly settled him.

He proved to be an unusually large Canada porcupine,—­an old patriarch, gray and venerable, with spines three inches long, and weighing, I should say, twenty pounds.  The build of this animal is much like that of the woodchuck, that is, heavy and pouchy.  The nose is blunter than that of the woodchuck, the limbs stronger, and the tail broader and heavier.  Indeed, the latter appendage is quite club-like, and the animal can, no doubt, deal a smart blow with it.  An