easel saw the rope that wriggled from the
ram's neck. Was it some new and terrible kind of snake? The weasel
respected snakes when they were large and active; so he forgot his
curiosity and slipped away from the dangerous neighbourhood.

The alarm of the weasel, however, was nothing to that of the
wood-mice. While the ram was lying down they came out of their secret
holes and played about securely, seeming to realize that the big
animal's presence was a safeguard to them. But when he moved, and they
saw the rope trail sinuously behind him through the scanty grass, they
were almost paralyzed with panic. Such a snake as that would require
all the wood-mice on Ringwaak to assuage his appetite. They fairly
fell backward into their burrows, where they crouched quivering in the
darkest recesses, not daring to show their noses again for hours.

Neither weasel nor wood-mice, nor the chickadees which came to eye him
saucily, seemed to the big ram worth a moment's attention. But when a
porcupine, his quills rattling and bristling till he looked as big
around as a half-bushel basket, strolled aimlessly by, the ram was
interested and rose to his feet. The little, deep-set eyes of the
porcupine passed over him with supremest indifference, and their owner
began to gnaw at the bark of a hemlock sapling which grew at one side
of the rock. To this gnawing he devoted his whole attention, with an
eagerness that would have led one to think he was hungry,--as, indeed,
he was, not having had a full meal for nearly half an hour. The
porcupine, of all nature's children, is the best provided for, having
the food he loves lying about him at all seasons. Yet he is for ever
eating, as if famine were in ambush for him just over the next
hillock.

Seeing the high indifference of this small, bristling stranger, the
ram stepped up and was just about to sniff at him inquiringly. Had he
done so, the result would have been disastrous. He would have got a
slap in the face from the porcupine's active and armed tail; and his
face would have straightway been transformed into a sort of anguished
pincushion, stuck full of piercing, finely barbed quills. He would
have paid dear for his ignorance of woodcraft,--perhaps with the loss
of an eye, or even with starvation from a quill working through into
his gullet. But fortunately for him the ewe understood the
peculiarities of porcupines. Just in time she noted his danger, and
rudely butted him aside. He turned