Skookum was a plucky fighter, but plainly he was nearly sick of it.

The pain of the quills would, of course, increase every minute and with each movement.

Quonab took a stout stick and threw the porcupine out of its retreat, (Rolf supposed to kill it when the head was exposed,) but the spiny one, finding a new and stronger enemy, wasted no time in galloping at its slow lumbering pace to the nearest small spruce tree and up that it scrambled to a safe place in the high branches.
Now the hunters called the dog.

He was a sorry-looking object, pawing at his muzzle, first with one foot, then another, trying to unswallow the quills in his tongue, blinking hard, uttering little painful grunts and whines as he rubbed his head upon the ground or on his forelegs.

Rolf held him while Quonab, with a sharp jerk, brought out quill after quill.
Thirty or forty of the poisonous little daggers were plucked from his trembling legs, head, face, and nostrils, but the dreadful ones were those in his lips and tongue.