The trouble with Bob, and, indeed, the entire Lynx family, was that, although they are so strong and their claws and teeth so sharp, their eyes are little good to them. In the woods, where nearly every creature is colored like the tree trunks, they cannot see anything unless it moves. Otherwise it would be too easy for a lynx to make his kill, and the grouse and the hares and the toads and the meadow mice would have no chance at all in the game of life. Not only were Bobby’s eyes not good, but his nose wasn’t half as keen as the noses of most wood-folks. He would walk right past a grouse hen without getting a smell of her. That is why Bobby was always so alarmed when a sudden sound came from behind. He never knew what it might be until he saw the creature move. This time he had not long to wait. A glossy form came ambling by, and Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, sat down on his haunches not ten feet away, to devour his catch. For he, too, had been fishing, and the splash that had startled Bobby was the sound of his great paw slapping through the water at his trout. Bobby watched craftily from under a canopy of leaves, his gray-brown body flattened along the limb. Then convinced that Twinkly Eyes had no design on his person, he began to wonder if the intruder would try to make off with his fish. But the little Bear knew the law of the wilderness as well as any one. He knew that to steal another’s catch would mean a fight if the owner caught him. Though he could not see the hidden claimant of the half-eaten trout, his nose was keen enough to tell that another’s scent clung to the rock on which it lay, and he had no mind for calling that other’s wrath upon his head. He was just slouching past, pretending he did not see it, in order to fish farther up the stream, when there was a snarl and a splutter, as Bobby leaped, spitting and clawing back to his fish. Twinkly stared at the strange creature, his little black eyes showing red lights, as he squared himself for the scrap that he feared would follow. What had he done, anyway, to call forth such an exhibition of bad temper, he asked crossly with a growl deep down in his throat. Then, too, Twinkly Eyes had never seen a lynx before, and the unknown is always to be distrusted. XLVII THE HIRED MAN DROPS A MATCH What Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, could not know as he stared at Bobby Lynx crouched beside his fish was that Bobby was quite as much afraid as he was. In fact, if the truth were known, Bobby Lynx was more afraid of Twinkly Eyes than Twinkly was of Bobby. But, of course, it never does to show one’s fear. So the two only glared at each other, green eyes staring into black, the bear cub poised on his hind legs ready for a wrestling match, the lynx kitten ready to spring should the other make a hostile move.