“So far as I can figure it out, there are about six chances to half a
dozen that this is wild honey, and I’m going to take one of the six on
it!”
With an extra screw to his courage and a great show of enjoyment for Unk
Wunk’s benefit, the little Black Bear tore open the wasps’ nest.
Out poured the angry insects by the hundreds!
But Twinkly took his medicine without a yelp to betray to Unk Wunk that
he minded.
XXXV
BOBBY LYNX LEARNS A LESSON
Now Bob Kitten, Madam Lynx’s young hopeful, was due to have an
experience that he would not forget in a hurry.
Never yet had he so much as crossed the trail of any creature he could
not get the best of with tooth and nail, if he did not paralyze it with
his terrifying howl. He therefore assumed that there was no one anywhere
that he need fear.
But one night when the moon rose round and yellow from behind the firs,
Bob Kitten heard that curious gnawing again, and this time it came from
right above his head, in a birch tree. Not only that, but he got a whiff
of the most tantalizing scent! It simply made his mouth water!
He peered into the tree-top, his round eyes gleaming through the shadow
in which he stood. There was a dark ball swaying far out on a slender
bough, and it did not look the least bit for-mid-able.
Bob let out his blood-curdling yowl, hoping that the thing might be so
scared it would drop right down at his feet, and save him the trouble of
climbing; but the dark ball never moved a muscle. It simply hung there
gnawing the bark as if it hadn’t a care in the world.
This angered Bob, and he was up in that birch tree, and out on the
swaying branch, without even stopping to think. One blow of his heavy
paw, and the creature would be felled to earth!
But still the round ball did not even glance up from its gnawing. The
impudence of it, thought Bob! Didn’t the creature even know enough to be
afraid? He crept nearer. Now he could see the rather mild-looking face
and the fat, hairy body ending in a stubby, pointed tail. Its hair was
certainly coarse looking, gleaming lighter on the ends in the moonlight.
He had never seen fur like that before.
Suddenly there was rattle as of so many dry twigs clacking together, and
the round ball suddenly fluffed itself out to twice its size,
confronting Bob with every quill erect. For it was a young porcupine Bob
had trapped in this awkward position, and he simply tucked his face down
between his paws till he was all bristles, and waited.
And Twinkly Eyes, the yearling cub, also waited, in the shelter of a
neighboring ironwood tree. For this was Unk Wunk, his old enemy of the
swimming hole.
This would have been an excellent time for Bob to have revised his plan
of action. But ignorance was bliss,—and with a yell of defiance, he
struck out at his adversary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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