Now the ground beneath was strewn with dried pine needles and fallen leaves, and when he walked, the leaves stuck to his feet. Biting at them to see what was the matter, he got his sticky face all plastered with twigs and leaves, and trying to wipe them off with his fore paws, he only made things worse, until his eyes were too covered with leaves and he couldn’t even see where he was going. Stumbling blindly about, and still slapping at the bees who seemed to want to get eaten alive, he fairly tripped over his clumsy feet, which were now twice as wide as they ought to have been. He bumped and tumbled about, and wandered around and around, now pawing at his eyes but only making more leaves stick to his lids, plastering them the tighter. It was a senseless predicament to have gotten into. Then his ears pricked to the sound of running water. Enraged bees still scrambled through his fur looking for a vulnerable spot in which to leave their stings, but Chinook was headed for that sound of running water. It would cool the feverish feeling in his nose.
Just as the little bear had begun to wonder if he were not wandering around in some bad dream, he stumbled off the bank and went splash into a deep pool. Striking out as vigorously as if he knew just where he were going, he began circling around and around, for it was a tiny whirlpool he had fallen into. It was lucky for him it wasn’t a large one. But the swift, churning water did its work on him: it washed off the honey and the clinging leaves.
As soon as Chinook could open his eyes again, he floundered out of that pool a cleansed and chastened little bear.
CHAPTER XIV
A MOUSE ON WINGS
“What’s that?” whispered Snookie, as the cubs were starting out one evening in the glow of the long June sunset to explore a new part of the woods.
“A bird, of course!” Chinook told her, as an orange-winged creature that at first looked as large as a crow swooped and darted after the flying insects which were its prey. But as the cubs came nearer, they could see that the body that carried those wide wings was only the size of a sparrow’s.
“It is not a bird,” said Snookie, “It has no feathers.”
“It’s a mouse, then,” guessed Chinook.
“Did you ever see a mouse fly?” asked his sister scornfully.
“Well, you see one now, don’t you?”