“Well, when he got tired of crickets he thought he’d look for a bird’s nest.  He came to a wide, flat, spreading juniper bush, just the kind that might have a bird’s nest under it; and as he nosed around it he came face to face with little Stripes.  You see, they were both after the same thing, and both had the same idea about the best place to look for it.

“Now, that young bear’s education had been terribly neglected.  He didn’t know any more about skunks than you do.  So he thought, maybe the soft little black-and-white thing with the fluffy tail carried so airily might be just as good to eat as birds’ eggs—­besides being more filling, of course.

“He would have grabbed little Stripes right off, had the latter tried to run away.  But as Stripes showed no sign of any such intention, the bear hesitated.  After all, there didn’t seem to be any great hurry!  He put out a big paw to slap the stranger, but changed his mind and drew it back again, the stranger seemed so unconcerned.  It was decidedly queer, he thought to himself, that a little scrap of a creature like that should be taking things so easy when he was around.  He began to feel insulted.

“As for Stripes, nothing was farther from his mind than running away from the big black creature that had suddenly appeared in front of him.  It was not for a plump, leisurely little skunk to be taking violent exercise on a hot night.  Yet he didn’t want to walk right over the bear—­not at all.  And he had no intention of making things disagreeable for the clumsy-looking stranger.”

“Huh, what could he do to him?” interrupted the Babe again.  He had the greatest faith in bears.

“Will you wait!” groaned Uncle Andy.  “But first let me explain to you the peculiar weapon with which Stripes, and all the Terror-Tail family, do their fighting when they have to fight—­which they are quite too polite to do unnecessarily.  Some distance below his bushy, graceful tail, sunken between the strong muscles of his thighs, Stripes had a shallow pit, or sac, of extraordinarily tough skin containing a curious gland which secreted an oil of terrible power.

“The strong muscles surrounding this sac kept the mouth of it always so tightly closed that not an atom could get out to soil the little owner’s clean, dainty fur, or cause the slightest smell.  In fact, Stripes was altogether one of the cleanest and daintiest and most gentlemanly of all the wild creatures.  But when he had to, he could contract those muscles around the oil sac with such violence that the deadly oil—­blinding and suffocating—­would be shot forth to a distance of several feet, right into the face of the enemy.  And that, let me tell you, was never good for the enemy!”

“Why?” demanded the Babe.

But Uncle Andy only eyed him scornfully.  “When Stripes, quite civilly, looked at the bear, and then proceeded to smell around under the juniper bush for that bird’s nest, which didn’t seem to be there, the bear was much puzzled.  He put out his paw again—­and again drew it back.