"None in life!" answered the hawk. "Wring away, I tell you! Are you afraid, you great clumsy monster?"
"I'll soon show you whether I am afraid or not!" said the bear, sternly. "Why did you chase my pigeon?"
"'Cause I wanted to eat her!" was the defiant reply. "If you had had nothing to eat for a week, you'd have eaten her long before this, I'll be bound!"
"Nothing to eat for a week!" repeated the bear, incredulously. "Why was that?"
"'Cause there wasn't anything, stupid!" said the other.
Here Bruin began to rub his nose with his disengaged paw, and to look helplessly about him, as he always did when disturbed in mind.
"Now—now—now!" he exclaimed, "you hawk, what do you mean by that? Couldn't you dig for roots?"
The hawk stared. "Dig for roots?" he repeated, contemptuously. "Look at my beak! Do you think I can dig with that?"
"It is rather short," said Bruin; "but—yes! why, of course, any one can dig, if he wants to."