g as
life. When Old Man Coyote ran into him, he growled a deep, provoked
growl and whirled around with one big paw raised to cuff whoever had
so nearly upset him. Old Man Coyote, more frightened than ever, yelped
and ran harder than before, so that by the time Buster Bear saw who it
was who had run into him, he was safely out of reach and still
running.

Then it was that Buster Bear first saw, rolling down the hill, the
strange creature which had so frightened Old Man Coyote. Unc' Billy
Possum, Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Peter, watching
from safe hiding places, wondered if Buster would run too. If he did,
it would be almost too good to be true. But he didn't. He looked first
at the strange creature rolling down the hill, then at Old Man Coyote
running as hard as ever he could, and his shrewd little eyes began to
twinkle. Then he began to laugh.

"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ho! I see you are up to your old
tricks, Prickly Porky!" he shouted, as the strange creature rolled
past, almost over his toes and brought up against a little tree at the
foot of the hill.

[Illustration: "I see you are up to your old tricks, Prickly Porky!"
he shouted. _Page 114._]

Old Man Coyote heard him and stopped short and turned to see what it
meant. Very slowly the strange creature unrolled and turned over.
There was a head now and a tail and four legs. It was none other than
Prickly Porky himself! There was no doubt about it, though he still
looked very strange, for he was covered with dead leaves which clung
to the thousand little spears hidden in his coat. Prickly Porky
grinned.

"You shouldn't have given me away, Buster Bear, just because you have
seen me roll down hill before in the Great Woods where we both came
from," said he.

"I think it was high time I did," replied Buster Bear, still
chuckling. "You might have scared somebody to death down here where
they don't know you."

Then everybody came out of their hiding places, laughing and talking
all at once, as they told Buster Bear of the joke they had played on
Old Man Coyote, and how it had all grown out of the fright Peter
Rabbit had received when he just happened along as Prickly Porky was
rolling down hill just for fun. As for Old Man Coyote, he sneaked
away, grinding his teeth angrily. Like a great many other people, he
couldn't take a joke on himself.

So Prickly Porky made himself at home in the Green Forest and took his
place among the litt