At any other time he would have listened to the warning of his nose. This time he wondered why he could not smell the honey as he had before. But perhaps he didn’t want to be warned. He hoped so dreadfully that there was honey that he tried to persuade himself it was there, even if he couldn’t smell it. So on he went, straight to the end of the swaying limb! Then he sat down to think it over. It was certainly very peculiar, that huge gray ball into which the “bees” were pouring. For while a few tried to sting the intruder and only got as far as his fur, so quiet had been his approach that most of them were going inside as if he had not been there. There is no animal in all the Deep Woods that can move as noiselessly as a little Black Bear when he wants to. Finally, when every “bee” had gone into the gray ball through a little round hole, he cautiously put out one paw and tried to reach after them. But it was too small for him; he only succeeded in closing it so the “bees” couldn’t get out. An angry buzz answered this move on his part. Unk Wunk, the yearling porcupine, who had been watching from the tree across the way, gave a grunt of amusement. “Those aren’t bees,” he jeered. “Those are wasps. So you won’t find any honey. I’d hate to be in your place when you take your paw off that hole!” “Hello, there,” grinned Twinkly Eyes. “I’m not afraid!” He really thought Unk Wunk was trying to drive him away from his find in order to enjoy it himself. He didn’t believe for an instant that it was really a nest full of angry wasps he had imprisoned. XXXIV A GOOD SPORT “No, sir, I’m not afraid,” said Twinkly Eyes, the Little Black Bear. He suspicioned that Unk Wunk the porcupine had been trying to drive him away from his find, as he had from Lone Lake, in order to enjoy it himself. For Twinkly Eyes really believed that he was in a bee tree. What else could these buzzing insects be, he asked? And where bees were, there was honey. His mouth watered at the thought. The only peculiar thing about it was that the bees should have gone into this huge gray ball that hung from the end of the limb. Twinkly held his paw over the opening, keeping his “bees” prisoners, while he thought it over. If it should prove to be wasps—whatever THEY were—how Unk Wunk would jeer at him! He wished the little porcupine would go away instead of sitting there watching with that spiteful gleam in his little black eyes. But Unk Wunk had no intention of going away. While he did not care to go to the trouble of taking the impudent scamp down a peg, he told himself he would just as soon the wasps did it for him. So he settled himself comfortably on his limb to watch what would happen when Twinkly took his paw off the hole in the wasp’s nest. “I suppose that pin-cushiony fellow is just aching to see me get hurt,” Twinkly told himself. “But I shan’t let him know, if I do.