“Unk Wunk, Unk Wunk!” said the dark form above him, but without really being aware of any one but himself. So confident was the little porcupine that no one in all that wilderness could harm him, no matter how they tried, that he didn’t even take the trouble to look beneath him. Twinkly Eyes drew a long breath and began to shake the tree. Unk Wunk went on gnawing, quite as if it had been no more than a passing breeze that had swayed him. Twinkly drew another breath and shook the harder, then dodged back to the opposite side of the trunk from Unk Wunk, prepared to watch the fall. But still nothing happened. The self-confident one simply kept on clinging with his long nails that had held him safe through many a wind-storm, even, sometimes, when their owner slept. Suddenly he turned his head. His narrow little eyes looked Twinkly over coolly, even indifferently. There was a bit of tender-looking bark just below him, and he began slowly descending. Twinkly’s heart beat faster. What should he do? [Illustration: [Bear & porcupine]] XL TWINKLY EYES PLAYS SAFE Twinkly Eyes was certainly put to it to know what to do. He had planned simply to shake the beech tree till Unk Wunk should fall off. Then one of two things would happen. Either he would crack like a chestnut burr, and supper would be an easy matter, or else it would be a fight on level ground, where Twinkly knew a trick or two. But to have Unk Wunk turning on him in this fashion! It was not at all the situation that he had counted on. For Unk Wunk wouldn’t for an instant stop going wherever he wanted to go. Certainly not for a little black bear whose face he could slap with a tailful of barbed quills if said bear got too fresh. Up to this moment Twinkly Eyes had never dreamed that a porcupine would actually turn on any one that hadn’t even touched him yet. As an actual fact, the prickly one had no intention of striking Twinkly Eyes. He had simply been un-a-ware of his presence up to that very moment, and unless the little Bear made a hostile move, he certainly wouldn’t be the first one to attack. Should Twinkly make a sudden move in his direction, though, he’d turn his back like lightning and slap, slap his armored tail, driving whatever might be in its way full of quills. One slap would be more than enough. However that may be, Twinkly made a sudden resolution, and it didn’t take him as long to carry it out as it does to read about it. He just let go and came down! Yes, sir, Twinkly just let go and slid! No careful searching for a foot hold, not even hand-over-hand work—nothing but ker-biff! And the little Black Bear had bounced down on his own fat self like a rubber ball, and out from under that beech tree, as fast as if Unk Wunk were going to try to drop on him—Yes, sir, he was somewhere else before you could have said Jack Robinson! Something deep inside him had suddenly decided there was more fun in playing safe.