Part 6

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.

After a time it began unrolling, and gradually out of the turmoil appeared none other than Unk Wunk, the porcupine, who proceeded to stretch his legs and yawn, quite as if nothing had happened.

“If that is his usual method of traveling,” thought Twinkly Eyes, “I’d rather not meet him, that’s sure. Wonder who was after him that time. I’ll bet he never intended to do all that rolling. Or is that just one of his queer ways?”

[Illustration: [Bear]]

XLII TWINKLY EYES PLOTS MISCHIEF

“A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

But Unk Wunk was just the opposite. In his roll down hill he had gathered several pecks of moss and leaves on the points of his quills.

Porcupines always do go by contraries.

And Twinkly Eyes, the Bear, was no sooner convinced that that great jagged mass of dry leaves was his foe of the swimming hole experience than his little black eyes began twinkling more merrily than ever. For here was opportunity knocking at his very door.

Now Twinkly Eyes was different to this extent from most of the folk that lived in the deep woods. He had a sense of humor.

To Mammy Cottontail and her brood, life was one perpetual effort to escape the jaws and claws and beaks and bills of the enemies on every side. The mere matter of finding enough to eat had its dangers.

While young Frisky Fox occasionally smiled at his own cleverness, it took the fat little bear to find amusement in everything that happened. In the first place, he was thus far afraid of nothing under all the wide blue sky. He was so much stronger and better-armed than almost any other creature in the wilderness!

True, he wasn’t as well armed as Bobby Lynx, but then, Bobby had no desire to dine off of any one that could fight like Twinkly Eyes. So, being unafraid, Twinkly could enjoy life. And being happily able to eat almost anything that came his way with relish, he had time to spare for play.

Just now, as he approached that bristling ball of oak leaves that had come so near to rolling square upon him, his little black eyes danced with mischief. Twinkly had a plan whereby he meant to have some fun at the prickly one’s expense!

He waited till Unk Wunk, indifferent to his presence, had stretched his legs and begun lazily gnawing the tree trunk that was nearest to his nose. “Unk Wunk, Unk Wunk!” he began to sing in his two monotonous notes. “Here I am again, right side up with care, and I don’t care the flip of my tail who sees me, nor what they try to do with me. Because I’m dead sure they’ll get the worst of it every time.”

“Woo-huff!” snorted Twinkly Eyes, sitting up on his haunches. “Sure and I’m going to find that out for myself! I’ll bet I know a trick that will take you down a peg, you old grouch, you! I saw my mother do it once last year, and I’ve never had so much fun since.”

With this, to which the porcupine paid not the slightest attention, Twinkly arose and began padding cautiously forward. For a few minutes he stood directly over the gnawer, but Unk Wunk accorded him not even the glance of an eye.

[Illustration: [Porcupine]]

XLIII TWINKLY TEASES UNK WUNK

Little did Unk Wunk dream of the trick that was being plotted against him, as he sat there lazily gnawing at the root of the handiest tree.

To be sure he knew that Twinkly Eyes was there. He was not that stupid. Only he felt so thoroughly entrenched beneath his quills that he never even dreamed that the little Black Bear would dare to attack him.

Indeed, if worst came to worst, could he not remove himself with the same speed with which he had just rolled down hill? That had been pure accident. Curling up at the approach of some prowler of the night,—he had not troubled to find out who,—he had suddenly lost his balance, and gone hurtling down the slope in the manner that had so startled Twinkly Eyes. It just made one more trick in his bag! For his bones were fatly padded, and he simply found himself in another place as good as the one he had left.

So once more he began creaking contentedly in his nasal voice his never ending chorus “Unk Wunk, Unk Wunk, Unk Wunk!”

Life certainly looked good from the porcupine standpoint, now that the trees were full of sap, and the great round yellow moon shown softly through the budding branches, lighting up every cranny of the forest floor.

The hylas in the marsh below chirped as musically as distant sleigh bells, reminding one that grass was lush and green, and there would be no more cold and snow,—nothing but one grand feast, more months than he could look ahead.

Beyond that, all he had to do was to keep quills out, and none could interfere with his pleasure.

But underneath, on the side where there were no quills,—as Twinkly Eyes suspected,—the little porcupine was as soft and vul-ner-able as any of the forest folk,—and it was this very fact that Twinkly meant to make the most of.

He therefore opened his offensive by flipping a clod of earth at the armored one. That had no visible effect, so he flipped a second. The third one struck the porcupine square on his unprotected nose, and Unk Wunk gave a grunt of annoyance, and started to transfer his person to a more distant tree.

Swift as thought, the little Bear thrust a cautious paw clear beneath one of the quilled sides, and with one blow hurled Unk Wunk against the tree trunk.

[Illustration: [Frogs]]

[Illustration:

“Hurled Unk Wunk against the tree trunk”

—Page 132 ]

XLIV TWINKLY EYES GETS HIS

If Twinkly Eyes had thought for a moment that the matter was ended, he had reckoned without his host.

He might well have called it off with Unk Wunk’s prob-able amaze-ment. But the little porcupine, though somewhat bruised, was still so set in his self-esteem that he could not imagine its happening a second time. And, feeling the need of an im-me-di-ate stim-u-lant, he once more uncurled from the ball he had doubled himself into in mid-air, and resumed his gnawing.

Imagine Twinkly Eyes’ astonishment, as he turned, his shoulder all but dislocated from the force of the thrust, to find the enemy still in-dif-fer-ent to his presence!

Hot-headed now with the thrill of battle, he padded across to Unk Wunk, who happened quite by chance to be nearly en-trenched between his tree and a hollow log. Then, being nothing but a yearling cub, he quite forgot the caution with which he had once seen Mother Black Bear manage the ma-nœuv-re. Whereupon he flipped his clod again, hoping to drive the porcupine from behind his log, and with a neat success, for the clod landed plop on the pacifist’s nose again!

With a squeak of righteous indignation, the quilled one thrust his unprotected face into the hollow log, and there he waited! Even now he felt no fear, only a desire to punish, to fight for peace.

And Twinkly Eyes—rash fellow—lumbered closer, and once more thrust his paw beneath the porcupine. But this time he allowed himself to come too close.

Quick as lightning, slap, slap! Unk Wunk snapped his barbed tail back and forth, and Twinkly gave a howl of pain.

A handful of the torturing quills had im-paled the tormentor’s scalp!

But for one chance this would have been the finish of the little Black Bear. It so happened that his head was down, and the quills struck directly over the hard bone of the skull. Into this they could not pen-e-trate. He was simply a bear with a mighty sore head. It was sore for long afterward, though with his good blood and the life of the open, it did finally heal, leaving him just a little scarred and more than a little chastened.

Henceforth Unk Wunk would be given a wide berth by one more of his neighbors.

[Illustration: [Bear]]

XLV BOBBY LYNX GOES FISHING

Now Twinkly’s neighbor Bobby was a sadder but a wiser young lynx kitten before ever Whoo Lee the owl had finished with him. For Bobby had climbed to the nest in the pine tree, rash fellow!

It but put the finishing touches on his lesson when the bark to which he was clinging with his one free paw gave way beneath his weight and sent him tumbling.

Not that Bobby minded, after the first shock of falling. Like all members of the cat family, large and small, he managed to double into a somersault in mid-air and so came down right side up, more hurt in his feelings than anywhere else. Indeed, he twice broke his fall by catching at passing limbs, and he need not have come to the ground at all, save that he preferred not to occupy the same tree as Whoo Lee.

In fact, no sooner had Bobby reached all fours in safety than he went slinking off through the shadows, as fast as ever his heavy feet could carry him.

After a time he sat down to wash his face and lick the places where the owl had clawed him. Then he realized that he was very, very thirsty, and hungry to boot, and he made his way to Pollywog Pond.

Here, unfortunately, he found Mother Red Fox and Frisky Fox and the other four Fox youngsters just finishing a lesson in catching frogs, and he was in no mood for meeting any one of that family.

So on and on he crept, through the ravine and on down to Rapid River. Here his mother had once brought him to teach him to catch trout, and here, after drinking deep of the chill waters, he crouched along a boulder to await the dawn.

At the first faint flush of pink along the sky, the first lightening of the shadows of the forest, and the first wee notes of awakening warblers, Bobby stretched one paw out over the water’s edge, claws set for a sudden swoop,—and waited silently.

For so long that Bobby all but went to sleep, his half-shut eyes could see no gleam of speckled scales in the silver water,—not, at least, within the reach of the waiting paw,—though that paw hung over the rim of one of the deepest pools, where trout were likeliest. The fish had to come pretty near the surface for him to strike successfully.

Then suddenly his mouth began to water, for a great fat beauty was swimming straight towards him. Bob’s eyes gleamed hungrily, his whiskers twitched with nervousness, and the green muscles tensed along his ready forearm.

Then a quick dart of his barbed paw, a flash of silver, and Bob had squared himself with a growl to as juicy a breakfast as anyone could ask.

Great ravenous bites he took, growling as he crunched, to warn all comers that a hungry lynx is not the person from whom it would be wise to try to steal.

The next instant there was a resounding splash in the stream behind him, and Bob in his surprise jumped full three feet in the air, landing on a limb of the nearest tree.

XLVI A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

It is always annoying to be disturbed in the midst of one’s breakfast,—the more so if one has just had a painful scrimmage with a great barred owl whose nest one was trying to rob.

It is therefore not surprising that Bobby Lynx looked murderously about him from the limb to which he had leaped at the sound of the splash.

It must have been a large animal, he reasoned, to make so much noise; and Bob was after all but a kitten, whose life had thus far been one long adventure from the day he had had it out with Unk Wunk, the porcupine, to his recent falling out with the angry owl.

Someone, he felt sure, meant to rob him of his trout, and, unfortunately, in his surprise he had left it on the boulder beside the River.

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.

Then Twinkly Eyes began backing away, ever so gradually, while Bobby watched through half closed lids, a growl deep down in his throat and his bob tail lashing from side to side.

“What is the use?” Twinkly had asked himself. “I don’t want his old fish, and I don’t want to fight. This isn’t my idea of going fishing at all! Though, of course, if no one had been there to claim that trout, I certainly shouldn’t have let it go to waste.”

Then suddenly both youngsters turned to sniff, as a new odor stole through the forest on the breath of the wind,—an odor so acrid and alarming that their fear of each other was forgotten in the face of a common peril.

With the smell came a soft gray cloud floating through the aisles of trees from Pollywog Pond.

Here the timber was chiefly hardwood, though an occasional birch reached white arms up against the green, and a tangle of high-bush blueberries and wild blackberry vines grew densely to as high as Twinkly Eyes could see from on tiptoe.

It had been a dry spring in the region around Mount Olaf. For weeks there had been no rain, and though Rapid River still ran broad and full from the thaw, the hot sun had drunk up every drop of moisture it could draw from the forest floor of dead leaves and fallen branches.

On the very night that the Red Fox family had gone frogging at Pollywog Pond, and Unk Wunk the Porcupine had amused himself by rolling down hill, and Bobby Lynx had met Twinkly Eyes on a fishing trip, the Hired Man at the Farm had set forth an hour before cock-crow to set a line of skunk traps.

Following the Old Logging Road toward Pollywog Pond, he had paused on a fallen log to tie his shoe-string and light his pipe, and as he rose he had given his match a shake and thrown it away.

Now of course the Hired Man meant to put his match out before he dropped it, but he didn’t look behind him to make sure. No sooner was his back turned than a thin flame sprung up in the dead leaves beside the fallen log, and soon a healthy bon-fire was snapping and curling around the log.

A white birch, with its paper bark, had caught a spark and started a red snake of flame that crept along the ground with the wind, first back towards the Farm, then around to the River. And before ever the Hired Man could race back home for help, the fire had gained such headway that the whole area between the pond and the river was ablaze and the underbrush going like kindling.

It was the smoke of this red ruin that had so terrified both bear and lynx that they forgot their feud.

[Illustration: [Bear & lynx]]

XLVIII THE FOREST AFLAME

It takes a common peril to make people forget their hard feelings toward one another.

Bobby Lynx was quite as willing as Twinkly Eyes to overlook the little matter of the fish, once they had sniffed the acrid smoke that now came creeping between the aisles of trees.

It was not big as forest fires go, and the trees were mostly hardwood, which go slowly. But the fire lay between Bobby and home. It was to the Lynx kitten a peril new to his experience.

His first thought was concealment, and he leaped into a tall pine and clambered to the topmost branches that would hold him.

Twinkly Eyes, mere curiosity once the first shock of his alarm was past, went shambling through the underbrush to see whence came that pungent cloud.

What Bobby saw from his outlook was a wall of fire. This advanced rapidly on the freshening wind. It devoured the underbrush that covered the forest floor, and it all but outsped the creatures he dimly saw were fleeing before it.

Here leaping flames climbed to the very tree-tops on the arms of the paper birches, and even the hard pines gave up their deadwood and smaller branches.

Long arms of scarlet raced through the open patches, devouring the dead pine needles and dry oak leaves. Their snapping and crackling widened Bobby’s eyes with terror as he flattened himself along his limb.

Soon, as Twinkly Eyes discovered before he had gone very far, the thickening smoke cloud was becoming uncomfortably hot. Its breath stung his nostrils and closed his eyes, and he gasped and stumbled, and finally turned back in one mad dash of terror.

Bobby turned to peer longingly across the river, which here stretched wider than he dared to swim.

He feared the water almost more than these unknown creatures of fire and smoke that seemed to be circling in on him now from every other side.

He crept stealthily down his pine tree on the side opposite the flames, and on to another that all but overhung the water, and there he lay, green eyes dilating nervously as he peered down at the scene around him.

Twinkly Eyes dashed first up-stream, then down, in his anxiety to get back to his den on Mount Olaf. For added to all his other troubles it was by now broad daylight, and he wanted to hide himself away and sleep till the shelter of the dark came round again. But there was no way out, and he took his stand at the edge of the water, eying the swift current, loath to venture the long swim to the other shore unless compelled to.

[Illustration: [Flames]]

XLIX IN THE FACE OF A COMMON PERIL

As the morning wore on, the wind grew stronger, blowing the leaping flames straight toward the river bank, where Bob and Twinkly Eyes huddled side by side in terror.

It was not a big fire, but it swept through the dry underbrush of the hardwood grove from Pollywog Pond to the plowed fields at the Valley Farm, and from the Old Logging road to the river.