XXXVI
TWINKLY WATCHES AGAIN
The little Black Bear was non-plussed. Surely it would be rash to try to punish Unk Wunk. But young Frisky Fox was like many another youngster. He wanted to find out for himself. Therefore, one night when Mother Red Fox had taken the pups all out for a hunt, Frisky had caught a whiff of that tan-ta-liz-ing smell that had made Bob’s mouth water.
“Hurry! There’s our supper now!” he had yipped joyously.
“Sh!—Do you want to scare everything within earshot?” Mother Red Fox had whispered, as she nipped his ear. “Besides, that’s nothing we can eat at this time of year.”
“Why not?” insisted Frisky, though under his breath, for his mother was still within nipping distance. “It smells perfectly great!”
“It tastes great, too! But we can’t catch porcupines at this time of year, I tell you; it takes deep snow to catch them.”
This satisfied him for the moment. But as they came nearer and nearer to the tempting odor, he sniffed and sniffed till he could hardly stand it. Then suddenly he saw where it came from, just a little dark lump on the ground—that’s all it was! It didn’t look in the least like a creature that could run away.
“Why, I could catch that fellow myself, just as easily as not!” he told himself. “I wonder why on earth mother thought I couldn’t? I’d just like to show her, anyway!” And he felt strongly tempted to slip on ahead and try it.
He did, in fact, tiptoe along behind a fallen log, till he came to a little clump of bushes right beside the porcupine. And there he stood watching and listening, and wondering for all he was worth why he couldn’t leap right on the creature and set his teeth in his throat. And the little Bear watched too!
But Unk Wunk was also listening, and no sooner had he detected the faint snap of a tiny twig down the hillside than he tucked his head under his paws and doubled up under his prickles, and there wasn’t so much as an inch of him that anyone could get at.
Frisky stared and stared at the strange creature. Here was that delicious-smelling supper right at his very feet, but—could Mother Red Fox have been right after all?