[Illustration: BR'ER FOX AND BR'ER POSSUM] It is not necessary to go to the forest for adventures: they lie in wait for us at our very doors. My home is in a built-up suburb of a large city, apparently hopelessly civilized. The other morning I was out early for some before-breakfast chopping, the best of all setting-up exercises. As I turned the corner of the garage, I suddenly came face to face with a black-and-white animal with a pointed nose, a bushy tail, and an air of justified confidence. I realized that I was on the brink of a meeting which demanded courage but not rashness. "Be brave, be brave, but not _too_ brave," should always be the motto of the man who meets the skunk. From my past experience, however, I knew that the skunk is a good sportsman. Unless rushed, he always gives three warnings before he proceeds to extremities. As I came near, he stopped and shook his head sadly, as if saying to himself, "I'm afraid there's going to be trouble, but it isn't my fault." As I still came on, he gave me danger signal number one by suddenly stamping his forepaws rapidly on the hard ground. Upon my further approach followed signal number two, to wit, the hoisting aloft of his aforesaid long, bushy tail. As I came on more and more slowly, I received the third and last warning--the end of the erect tail moved quietly back and forth a few times. It was enough. I stood stony still, for I knew that if, after that, I moved forward but by the fraction of an inch, I would meet an unerring barrage which would send a suit of clothes to an untimely grave. For perhaps half a minute we eyed each other. Like the man in the story, I made up my mind that one of us would have to run--and that I was that one. Without any false pride I backed slowly and cautiously out of range. Thereupon the threatening tail descended, and Mr. Skunk trotted away through a gap in the fence into the long grass of an unoccupied lot--probably seeking a breakfast of field-mice. I felt a definite sense of relief, for it is usually more dangerous to meet a skunk than a bear. In fact, all the bears that I have ever come upon were disappearing with great rapidity across the landscape. But there are times when a meeting with either Mr. or Mrs. Bruin is apt to be an unhappy one. Several years ago I was camping out in Maine one March, in a lumberman's shack. A few days before I came, two boys in a village near by decided to go into the woods hunting, with a muzzle-loading shot-gun and a long stick between them. One boy was ten years old, while the other was a patriarch of twelve. On a hillside under a great bush they noticed a small hole which seemed to have melted through the snow, and which had a gamy savor that made them suspect a coon. The boy with the stick poked it in as far as possible until he felt something soft. "I think there's something here," he remarked, poking with all his might.