"_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 clean, dainty fur, or cause the slightest smell. In fact, Stripes was altogether one of the cleanest and daintiest and most gentlemanly of all the wild creatures. But when he _had_ to, he could contract those muscles around the oil sac with such violence that the deadly oil--blinding and suffocating--would be shot forth to a distance of several feet, right into the face of the enemy. And _that_, let me tell you, was never good for the enemy!" "Why?" demanded the Babe. But Uncle Andy only eyed him scornfully. "When Stripes, quite civilly, looked at the bear, and then proceeded to smell around under the juniper bush for that bird's nest, which didn't seem to be there, the bear was much puzzled. He put out his paw again--and again drew it back. "Then he said 'Wah!' quite loud and sharp, to see if that would frighten the imperturbable stranger. But Stripes didn't seem to mind noises like that. His bright, intelligent eyes were on the bear all the time, you know, though he seemed to be so busy hunting for that bird's nest. "'Pooh!' said the bear to himself, 'he's just plain idiot, that's what's the matter with him. I'll eat him, anyway!' and he bounced forward, with paw uplifted, intending to gather Stripes as he would a fat cricket." Here Uncle Andy was so inconsiderate as to pause and relight his pipe. The Babe clutched his arm. "Well," he went on presently, "just at this moment Stripes made as if he was going to run away, after all. He whisked round and jumped about two feet, and his fine tail flew up over his back, and in that very instant the bear thought the whole side of the hill had struck him in the face. "He stopped with a bump, his nose went straight up in the air, and he squalled: 'Wah-ah! Wah--' But in the middle of these remarks he choked and strangled and started pawing wildly at his nose, trying to get his breath. "His eyes were shut tight, and that deadly oil clung like glue. His paws couldn't begin to get it off, and so he fell to rooting his nose in the turf like a pig, and plowing the grass with his whole face, fairly standing on his head in his efforts, all the time coughing and gurgling as if he was having a fit.