He
was licking his bloody chops for the twentieth time, gloating in gore,
when "crack" went Quonab's gun, and the pekan had an opportunity of
resuming the combat with Kahk far away in the Happy Hunting.

"Yap, yap, yap!" and in rushed Skookum, dragging the end of Rolf's sash
which he had gnawed through in his determination to be in the fight,
no matter what it cost; and it was entirely due to the fact that the
porcupine was belly up, that Skookum did not have another hospital
experience.

This was Rolf's first sight of a fisher, and he examined it as one does
any animal--or man--that one has so long heard described in superlative
terms that it has become idealized into a semi-myth. This was the
desperado of the woods; the weird black cat that feared no living thing.
This was the only one that could fight and win against Kahk.

They made a fire at once, and while Rolf got the mid-day meal of tea and
venison, Quonab skinned the fisher. Then he cut out its heart and liver.
When these were cooked he gave the first to Rolf and the second to
Skookum, saying to the one, "I give you a pekan heart;" and to the
dog, "That will force all of the quills out of you if you play the fool
again, as I think you will."

In the skin of the fisher's neck and tail they found several quills,
some of them new, some of them dating evidently from another fight
of the same kind, but none of them had done any damage. There was no
inflammation or sign of poisoning. "It is ever so," said Quonab, "the
quills cannot hurt him." Then, turning to the porcupine, he remarked, as
he prepared to skin it:

"Ho, Kahk! you see now it was a big mistake you did not let Nana Bojou
sit on the dry end of that log."

Chapter 38. The Silver Fox

They were returning to the cabin, one day, when Quonab stopped and
pointed. Away off on the snow of the far shore was a moving shape to be
seen.

"Fox, and I think silver fox; he so black. I think he lives there."

"Why?" "I have seen many times a very big fox track, and they do not go
where they do not live. Even in winter they keep their own range."

"He's worth ten martens, they say?" queried Rolf.

"Ugh! fifty."

"Can't we get him?"

"Can try. But the water set will not work in winter; we must try
different."

This was the plan, the best that Quonab could devise for the snow:
Saving the ashes from the fire (dry sand would have answered), he
selected six open places in the woods on the south of the la