40 BEYOND THE PASTURE BARS 



Why, it would be almost as bad as trying to 

 breathe without breathing, would it not! Yet 

 that is the way wild animals have been taught to 

 play on their soft little tip-toes, mouths shut, 

 but eyes and ears wide open, and every muscle 

 ready instantly for a dive into their holes. 



And that is the way these baby skunks were 

 playing. There was a faint stirring of dead 

 leaves, and now and then a faint little hiss of an- 

 ger. And once, when one of the little rolly-pollies 

 got a bump that hurt him, he got very angry, and 

 there was a fuss in a twinkling. 



He stamped his fore feet, showed his little milk 

 teeth, humped up his back and turned both ends 

 of his tiny body, like a pinched wasp, toward 

 every one of his brothers that came near him. 

 They all knew what that peculiar twist to both 

 ends of his body meant, and kept their distance. 

 I knew what it meant too. These young things 

 had already learned their lesson of self-defense. 

 A three-weeks-old baby skunk could hold his own 

 against anything. 



I lay so long watching them that by and by the 

 dusk began to deepen in the ravine. Night was at 

 hand. I must be going, and was about to draw 

 back, so as not to frighten them, when, slowly out 



