nose and eyes.

With a loud "ugh," and a grunt and squeal of pain, Black Bruin
retreated into the nearest thicket.

It seemed as though liquid fire had been dashed in his eyes, and of all
the obnoxious smells that ever disgusted his nostrils, this was the
worst. His eyes smarted and burned, and the more he rubbed them the
worse they became.

He was nearly blinded and so had to go groping and stumbling through
the woods to the nearest brook, to which his wild instinct guided him
in some miraculous manner. Here he plunged in his face up to his ears
and was slightly relieved.

For an hour he repeated the operation over and over, plunging his head
under and keeping it there as long as he could hold his breath.

At last the burning, smarting fluid was partly washed from both eyes
and nostrils, and Black Bruin went upon his way a wiser and sorrier
beast.

It was two or three days before the inflammation entirely left his eyes
and his nostrils got back their old sure power of discriminating
between the many scents of the forest.

He had learned his first lesson in the woods, which was that a
well-behaved skunk when taking his morning walk, is not to be disturbed.

After this, whenever Black Bruin even scented a skunk, he kept at a
discreet distance and contented himself with chipmunks and mice.

One morning he surprised a fox eating a rabbit which it had just caught
in a briar-patch, and made such a sudden rush upon Reynard that he fled
in hot haste, leaving the rabbit for the bear. In this way Black Bruin
learned that rabbit was good to eat, even as palatable as squirrel, and
after that he hunted rabbits whenever opportunity offered.

Sometimes he would find a gray rabbit's hole and with much labor dig
the poor rabbit out. More frequently he would watch at the mouth of a
rabbit-burrow, where he had seen a rabbit enter, until bunny
reappeared, sticking his head out cautiously to reconnoitre, when one
swift stroke of the heavy paw bagged the game.

It was one day after having watched for several hours at the mouth of a
rabbit-burrow, that Black Bruin discovered a queer creature, three or
four times the size of a rabbit, walking leisurely along through the
woods, and went in hot pursuit.

By this time, the experience with the skunk had lost its old terror,
and he was again the curious, keen hunter.

Whatever it was, the newcomer did not seem to be much afraid of him,
and that was strange. Most of the wild cr