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.
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