Twinkly always came down that way, falling perfectly limp, like a fat butter ball, and it never hurt him any more than it would to roll off a log. And it wasn’t till he was half way down the mountain-side that he remembered he was hungry. “Hoo-wuff!” he sighed as he slowed down for breath, once more catching the croak-croak from Pollywog Pond. “That was a most amazing fellow! I’m not surprised that people keep their distance. I’d rather starve than try that again, anyway,—at least I think I would. “I wonder, though—how I wonder what he would do if I were to find him some day just plodding along the ground, and I were to flip a clod of earth at him? I really am curious to see what would happen, the old slow-poke! By ginger, I’ve half a mind to try it!” XLI TWINKLY EYES GETS A GREAT SURPRISE Twinkly Eyes was certainly as full of curiosity as a pond is of frogs. And though he went on and caught himself a nice dinner in Pollywog Pond, he wondered all the way why Unk Wunk was such a curious fellow, and what he would do if he were provoked. The idea of his going on gnawing as if nothing had happened, with Twinkly shaking the tree for all he was worth! And then to stare down at his tormentor with that cold in-dif-fer-ence! It was too much for Twinkly Eyes. No sooner had he filled his tummy comfortably full than his courage all came back to him, and he determined to go back and get a rise out of that old grizzly grouch. These things he turned over and over in his curious mind, as he padded noiselessly back along the furtive trail, his eyes twinkling at a little plan that began forming in the back of his head. It would be worth trying, just to see what would happen. Suddenly swish, thump, thumpety-thumpety-bump, came something straight down the side of a ledge! Twinkly’s first thought was that it must be a man, for certainly no Forest Folk would make such an out-ra-geous racket. Even a bear could pad along through the underbrush without more than cracking a twig, while as for foxes and rabbits and owls, and even lynxes, if they made that much noise just once, they’d deserve to have all their enemies come on the run! No, assuredly, it must be some creature that had no place in the wilderness; and as it was coming altogether too near his line of march, he decided to climb the nearest tree and wait till he saw what the excitement was all about. Bang, bump, thump, came the sounds again. Then something struck a clump of high-bush blueberry bushes in a way that crushed them flat, and a great ragged ball of dry oak leaves emerged, with a sound of scraping and crackling that was quite unlike anything Twinkly Eyes had ever heard before. It went on a little farther, then brought up against a boulder. Eyes fairly popping with curiosity, Twinkly slid down his tree-trunk, bounding off into a covert of low bushes, from which he might peer at the astounding mass at the foot of the boulder.