Well, then they traveled on again, and the next tree which the monkey climbed was a pine tree, and on it were long pine cones, something like brown bananas, but not very good to eat. The monkey began picking them, and Uncle Wiggily called out:
"Have you found any fortune for me?"
"No," said the red monkey, sadly, "I haven't, but we can have a game of baseball with these cones when I come down. Look out, I'm going to toss some to you."
Uncle Wiggily got safely out of the way behind a big stone, and the red monkey tossed down a number of the long, brown pine cones. And just as the first of them were nearing the ground a most surprising thing happened. Out from the woods came a big black bear, and he walked toward the tree in which the monkey was, just in time to be hit on the end of his soft and tender nose by the sharp pine cones which the monkey threw.
"Wow!" cried the bear. "Who did that?"
Well, of course, Uncle Wiggily wasn't going to say that he had done it, for he hadn't, so the rabbit just crouched down behind the rock, and waited to see what would happen.
And the monkey hadn't seen the bear, so he threw down some more pine cones, and land sakes flopsy dub and a potato pancake! one of the cones hit the bear on his soft nose again!
"Wow! Wow!" cried the bear once more. "Who did that?"
And this time he happened to look up, and there he saw the poor red monkey up in the pine tree.
"Ah, ha! It's you, is it?" growled the bear. "Now, just for that I'm going to climb up there and eat you."