Nimble and Dodger paid little heed to her warning, except to stop until the good lady had gone on and left them. Then, just as they were on the point of renewing their frolic, somebody spoke in a hoa.r.s.e voice. It was old Mr. Crow. He sat on a low branch of a spreading pine, where he had been watching the contest for some time without being noticed.

"I'd have my fun if I wanted to," he croaked. "Ladies are too finicky.

They don't know what a good time is."

Now, Mr. Crow's remarks pleased Nimble. And they pleased Dodger the Deer. They didn't know that the old gentleman was a famous trouble maker.

So Dodger and Nimble drew a little distance apart, as they always did when they were getting ready to clash.

"Go it!" squalled Mr. Crow.

And they started. And Mr. Crow jumped up and down in his excitement.

"Now there's going to be some real fun," he muttered.

But Dodger the Deer leaped aside just in time to avoid being hit. And that didn't please Mr. Crow at all.

"You fellows aren't half trying," he cried impatiently. "Anyone would think you were a pair of Spike Horns."

Now, all Spike Horns were two whole years younger than Dodger and Nimble. So it was no wonder that Mr. Crow's words stung them.

Nimble charged more fiercely than ever. And Dodger stood his ground.

With his feet planted firmly beneath him he waited for the blow.

There was a crack and a thud.

"Ha!" Mr. Crow squawked. "That's a little more like it. Dodger didn't dodge that time, to be sure. But he stood still. And only a Spike Horn would stand and _wait_ for the enemy."

Of course Dodger couldn't help wanting to show Mr. Crow that he knew how to carry on a mock battle. So the next time Nimble rushed at him Dodger did not wait. He jumped to meet Nimble. They struck in the air with a frightful crash and fell sprawling upon the ground.

"Ha! That's more like it!" Mr. Crow applauded. "That's the sort of mock battle I like to see!"

XVI

MR. CROW LOOKS ON

Nimble and his friend Dodger the Deer picked themselves up off the ground where they had fallen after their collision in the air. They did not feel any too pleasant. One of Dodger's sharp tines had given Nimble a good p.r.i.c.k. And one of Nimble's points had stung Dodger like a hornet's sting.

If only one of them had been p.r.i.c.ked the whole affair might have ended differently. For then perhaps only one of them would have lost his temper. As they drew apart they were growing more angry every instant.

And when they wheeled and glared at each other old Mr. Crow, who was watching them from his perch in the pine tree, called out: "Don't stop!

Make it lively, now!"

Nimble gritted his teeth and stamped upon the ground.

"I'll teach you not to p.r.i.c.k me!" he muttered.

"I'll make you wish you'd left those new antlers at home!" cried Dodger the Deer.

"Don't stop!" old Mr. Crow urged them once more as he teetered on his perch. "Let the fun go on!"

He squalled so loudly that his cousin Jasper Jay heard him half a mile away and came hurrying up to see what was going on. He arrived just in time to see Nimble and Dodger stagger back from another mad charge.

"What's this? A mock battle?" Jasper Jay inquired as he settled down beside Mr. Crow.

"No!" Mr. Crow replied in m.u.f.fled tones. "It is a real one--but they don't know it yet."

Next to quarreling himself, old Mr. Crow loved to look on while others wrangled. And though he had no taste himself for actual fighting, he liked to see his neighbors pummel and peck and buffet and bounce one another.

So Mr. Crow enjoyed watching the tilt between Nimble and Dodger the Deer. Neither Mr. Crow, nor his rowdy cousin Jasper Jay, had ever seen so furious a fracas as that one soon became. Sometimes Nimble and Dodger rushed together with such force that it seemed to Mr. Crow their horns must break off. Sometimes they reared and struck each other with their front hoofs.

At first, whenever he felt a hurt Nimble only fought the harder. When Dodger's horns gouged him and his hoofs cut him Nimble b.u.t.ted and thrust and struck all the faster. But for every buffet he repaid Dodger, Dodger gave him another that was heavier than ever.

It was no wonder that in time Nimble began to feel tired. But he didn't let Dodger the Deer know that.

"This was easy to start," Nimble thought, "but it seems hard to stop. I wish Dodger would run away."

In the meantime Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay agreed that the battle was growing tamer every moment.

"Hustle it up!" Mr. Crow called to Nimble and Dodger, while Jasper Jay jeered at them both and told them they were mollycoddles.

"I shouldn't call this a mock battle now," Mr. Crow told them. "It's more like a game of tag."

"If only Dodger would run away!" Nimble said under his breath. "I'll stop a minute and see if he won't." So he stood still, with his nose all but touching the ground.

Dodger the Deer did not run. But he paused and stood exactly as Nimble was standing.

So they eyed each other for a while. And neither of them said a word.

"Come!" cried old Mr. Crow. "This will never do. Give us more action!"

And then Dodger the Deer looked up at Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay and spoke.

"If you want more action why don't you two furnish it?" he asked.

"That's a good idea!" Nimble exclaimed. "Let's see a mock battle up in the tree!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Don't Stop!" Said Old Mr. Crow, to Nimble.

_Page 85_]

But Mr. Crow replied hoa.r.s.ely that he had to meet a friend down the valley. "I must be flapping along," he said. And off he went.

Jasper Jay grinned and winked at Nimble and Dodger behind Mr. Crow's back. And then with a loud squall--which might have meant almost anything--he too flew away.

"That was the liveliest mock battle we ever had," Nimble remarked to his friend Dodger.