He kept his rifle ready during the day for game, but he shot only what he needed. He did not attempt to kill the deer. He knew that he would have no opportunity to care for the meat. But he did, occasionally, shoot the head off a cock-grouse at close range, and no chef of Paris could offer a more tempting dish than its flesh, rolled in flour and served up, fried brown, in bacon grease. It was mostly white meat, exceedingly tender, yet with the zest of wild game. But he dined on bacon exclusively one night because, after many misses at grouse, he declined to take the life of a gray squirrel that had perched in an oak tree above the trail. Someway, it seemed to be getting too much pleasure out of life for him to blast it with a rifle shot. A squirrel has only a few ounces of flesh, and the woods without them would be dull and inane indeed. Besides, they were bright-eyed, companionable people--dwellers of the wilderness even as Bruce--and their personality had already endeared itself to him.
Once he startled a fawn almost out of its wits when he came upon it suddenly in a bend in the trail, and he shouted with delight as it bounded awkwardly away. Once a porcupine rattled its quills at him and tried to seem very ferocious. But it was all the most palpable of bluffs, for Urson, while particularly adept at defense, has no powers of offense whatever. He cannot move quickly. He can't shoot his spines, as the story-books say. He can only sit on the ground and erect them into a sort of suit of armor to repel attack. But Bruce knew enough not to attempt to stroke the creature. If he had done so, he would have spent the remainder of the season pulling out spines from the soft flesh of his hand.
Urson was a patient, stupid, guileless creature, and he and Bruce had a strange communion together as they stood face to face on the trail. "You've got the right idea," Bruce told him. "To erect a wall around you and let 'em yell outside without giving them a thought. To stand firm, not to take part. You're a true son of the pines, Urson. Now let me past."
But the idea was furthest from Urson's mind. He sat firm on the trail, hunched into a spiny ball. Instead of killing him with his rifle butt, as Dave would have done, Bruce laughed good-naturedly and went around him.