should the best-known ranger's in Texas when 

 requested to hold up my hands. The skunk is 

 the only animal left in the East that you will not 

 parley with. Try to stare the Great Stone Face 

 out of countenance if you wish, but when a 

 skunk begins to sidle toward you, do not try to 

 stare him out of the path ; just sidle in the direc- 

 tion he sidles, and sidle as fast as you can. 



Late one afternoon I was reading by the side 

 of a little ravine on one of the islands in Casco 

 Bay. The sharp, rocky walls of the cut were 

 shaded by scrub-pines and draped with dewberry- 

 vines. Presently the monotonous slop of the 

 surf along the shore, growing fainter as the tide 

 ebbed, was broken by a stir in the dry leaves at 

 the bottom of the ravine. I listened. Something 

 was moving below me. Creeping cautiously to 

 the edge, I looked down, and there, in a narrow 

 yard between two boulders, not ten feet beneath 

 me, was a family of seven young skunks. 



They were about three weeks old, " kittens," 

 the natives called them, and seemed to be play- 

 ing some kind of a rough-and-tumble game to- 

 gether. Funny little bunches of black and white 

 they were, with pointed noses, beady black eyes, 

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