hen he would almost fall over himself
trying to scoop them all up at once--and while he was chewing those
he'd caught he'd look as disappointed as anything over those that got
away.

"Well, when he got tired of crickets he thought he'd look for a bird's
nest. He came to a wide, flat, spreading juniper bush, just the kind
that might have a bird's nest under it; and as he nosed around it he
came face to face with little Stripes. You see, they were both after
the same thing, and both had the same idea about the best place to look
for it.

"Now, that young bear's education had been terribly neglected. He
didn't know any more about skunks than you do. So he thought, maybe
the soft little black-and-white thing with the fluffy tail carried so
airily might be just as good to eat as birds' eggs--besides being more
filling, of course.

"He would have grabbed little Stripes right off, had the latter tried
to run away. But as Stripes showed no sign of any such intention, the
bear hesitated. After all, there didn't seem to be any great hurry!
He put out a big paw to slap the stranger, but changed his mind and
drew it back again, the stranger seemed so unconcerned. It was
decidedly queer, he thought to himself, that a little scrap of a
creature like that should be taking things so easy when he was around.
He began to feel insulted.

"As for Stripes, nothing was farther from his mind than running away
from the big black creature that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
It was not for a plump, leisurely little skunk to be taking violent
exercise on a hot night. Yet he didn't want to walk right over the
bear--not at all. And he had no intention of making things
disagreeable for the clumsy-looking stranger."

"Huh, what could _he_ do to _him_?" interrupted the Babe again. He had
the greatest faith in bears.

"_Will_ you wait!" groaned Uncle Andy. "But first let me explain to
you the peculiar weapon with which Stripes, and all the Terror-Tail
family, do their fighting when they have to fight--which they are quite
too polite to do unnecessarily. Some distance below his bushy,
graceful tail, sunken between the strong muscles of his thighs, Stripes
had a shallow pit, or sac, of extraordinarily tough skin containing a
curious gland which secreted an oil of terrible power.

"The strong muscles surrounding this sac kept the mouth of it always so
tightly closed that not an atom could get out to soil the little
owner's cl