Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/88

66 and, above all, the resplendent, waving pompon of a tail, made it a spectacular study in blacks and whites.

With tiny mincing steps the little animal came straight on toward him. It seemed so tame and unconcerned, that De Haven planned to catch it and carry it back to the farm wrapped up in his coat. As he took a step forward, the stranger seemed for the first time to notice him. It stopped and stamped with its forepaws, in what seemed to the artist a playful and attractive manner. This, if he had but known it, was signal number one of the prescribed three which a well-bred skunk always gives, if there be time, even to his bitterest enemies.

As De Haven moved toward the animal, he was again interested to see the latter hoist aloft the gorgeous black-and-white banner of its clan. Rushing on to his ruin, he went unregardingly past this second danger-signal. By this time, he was within six feet of the skunk, which had now come to a full stop and was watching him intently out of its deep-set eyes. As he approached still nearer, he noticed that the white tip of the tail, which heretofore had hung dangling, suddenly stiffened and waved erect. "Like a flag of truce." he observed whimsically to himself. Never was there a more dreadful misapprehension. That raising of the white tail-tip is the skunk's ultimate warning. After that, remains nothing but war and carnage and chaos.

If even then the artist had but stood stony still,