CHAPTER XI
SACKING THE FOREST STORE-HOUSE
Toby had insisted upon stowing that wonderful aeroplane appendix which he called an "aviator's life-saver parachute," in the bottom of the wagon when starting out on this camping trip. He was working at it while helping to keep camp the first afternoon after their arrival.
"All I hope is," he went on to say, when Elmer chanced to come around close to where he straddled a log, and did some heavy sewing with the toughest waxed string he could use, "that I find a chance to try out this thing again while we're in this region. If no other place shows up I might climb to the top of the tower on the old house, and jump off there. How high would you guess, off-hand, that might be, Elmer?"
"Oh! perhaps thirty-five or forty feet," replied the other, carelessly, and hardly noting what Toby was saying, because just then he had caught a peculiar sound that came from some little distance away.
"Do you hear that, Elmer?" called out George.
"Yes, and I was trying to make out what it was when you spoke," replied the scout master. "I reckon it must be some one busy with an ax, for the blows are repeated as regular as clock-work."
"And our chums took the camp ax away with them?" suggested Toby, looking up, an eager glow commencing to show in his eyes.
"Yes, and they went off in that direction, too," added George.
With that the four camp keepers smiled at each other.
"Can it be possible they've found a bee-tree, after all?" asked George, who, despite his yearning for a honeycomb, could not overcome his skeptical disposition, and believe that such a delightful consummation of the bee hunt had come about.
"Listen to that whanging, will you?" cried Toby; "nobody but Lil Artha could use an ax like that. As sure as you live they must have struck something. Tell me about the babes in the woods, will you; some people wade in good luck every time they start out!"
"Another fellow has taken hold, because the sound changes," George observed, sagaciously; "and p'raps Ty Collins is swinging the ax now. He can hew close to the line; fact is, I never saw a scout who could chop as evenly as Ty. Wow! did you hear that crash, fellows? A tree went down that time, whether there's any honey in the same or not. I'll only believe it when I see, smell and taste the nectar."
A short time afterwards they heard some one coming on the run. Then a figure broke out of the brush, waving excitedly.
"Hi! get your buckets, and come along to help gather the harvest!" Lil Artha was shouting as he approached, half out of breath.
"Then you sure enough did find a bee-tree, and it isn't any joke?" demanded the incredulous George.
"Take a look at me, and then say if I show up like a joke!" demanded the long-legged scout, indignantly.
Everybody laughed as he twisted his face up, and tried to look serious. It was an utter impossibility with that lump ornamenting the end of his nose, others gradually swelling his cheeks, while various suspicious signs behind his ears marked the places where the angry little bees had left their stings.
"No hurry, Lil Artha," said Elmer; "let me rub your face with this witch hazel, and put a little ointment on to relieve the pain and reduce the swelling. You're puffing out under the eyes right now, and if something isn't done you'll have to be led around for a while."
While Elmer was doctoring the battered comrade George kept plying him with questions, as though he had great difficulty in believing the glorious truth.
"I hope it isn't only an old hornet's nest you've struck," he went on to say, doubtfully; "but then there wouldn't be any at this time of year, I guess. Sure you saw real honey, did you, Lil Artha?"
"And smelled it too!" cried the afflicted scout. "Why, the old tree burst open when it fell, and you just ought to see what gallons of the stuff fills the hollow trunk away up near the top. My! but the bees are mad, and swarming around there by the million! I ran in among 'em, thinking to snatch a comb, and get away with it, but they swooped down on me, and I had to cut for it like fun. Elmer, however, can we get some of that honey without being stung to death? Oh! if only I had one of Daddy Green's bee head-nets that he loans to people when he's showing them the inside of a hive in his apiary, wouldn't it be the boss; and rubber gloves to go with the same."
"Perhaps I might rig up a net somehow," Elmer mused; "I've got a piece of mosquito netting in my bag that I use for a minnow seine, and that ought to make several head-nets. Let's see if we can find any gloves that'll help keep our hands out of danger."
After a hunt through all the traps the boys managed to secure enough coverings to answer the purpose after a clumsy fashion. Meanwhile George and Toby had hastily gathered what utensils they had with them capable of holding some of the honey. Everybody was wildly excited, for they had never really passed through an experience of this sort. Bee trees they had heard of many times, but that one should actually be discovered when they were camping out, and yearning for something of a sweet nature, seemed almost too good to be true.
"All ready here, Lil Artha!" exclaimed George; "and now lead us to your wonderful wild honey hive. I just want to see it with my own eyes, that's all."
Lil Artha looked severely at him, that is, as well as he could with those half-shut eyes of his, and then remarked sarcastically:
"Well, if you ain't the limit, George; I sure hope you do see the plain evidence, yes, and feel some of 'em too, like I did. They say the poison of bee stings is used in medicine, and it's mighty good for some things. P'raps a dose of the same'd cure you of your questioning everything there is. But come on, everybody."
Elmer did not know whether they were exactly wise in abandoning the camp, even for a brief time; but he felt that it would be hard to keep any one there; so he concluded to take the slight risk.
Lil Artha was a pretty good scout. He had noted directions as he went forth on the expedition, so that in returning to the camp he had made what might be called in more senses than one a "bee-line"; and now the trail was so plainly marked that even a fellow with one eye, or half-closed ones, could follow it back to where the other three scouts awaited their coming, hiding behind the brush so as not to attract too much attention from the buzzing horde of insects.
The netting was fashioned into head protectors, the ends being tucked well down in their coats. Then donning heavy gloves the two boys selected for the work, George and Ty Collins, started boldly into that whirling mass of excited bees.
They shortly came out bearing pans full of splendid honey, and doubtless a considerable number of stings in spite of all the precautions taken against this evil.
"Next time look for a little fresher stock," Elmer told them; "for while this is all right, and like amber in color, you'll find that it's last year's gathering. Split the tree further up, and get the latest stuff!"
So Ty took the ax back with him; while George worked a sort of smoke smudge Elmer had prepared, in order to help stupefy the bees. It did the business in great shape, too, as every bee keeper uses this means for keeping the little insects from paying too much attention to him when he is working with their hive. They seem to fancy that their home is in deadly danger of being consumed, and every working bee immediately burdens itself down with all the honey it can carry, and for the time being renders itself helpless to use its sting.
Every scout managed to accumulate one or more lumps, however, for the air was heavily charged with the bewildered insects, now homeless on a fall afternoon; and although the boys did a great deal of dodging they could not avoid contact all the time. But then the sight of that splendid honey made them forget their present troubles. They snatched up the bottle of witch hazel, or applied the ammonia solution recklessly, to immediately start in again working like heroes.
Elmer started back to camp bearing their one bucket actually full of the most delicious honey he had ever tasted; and soon afterwards Lil Artha followed with two kettles also heavily laden with the same.
When Chatz came along with several heavy honeycombs secured with an arrangement consisting of cords, and stout twigs from some hickory tree, the three looked at each other in dire dismay.
"We can't live on honey alone, you know," Lil Artha up and said; "and it looks like we've already got every cooking vessel loaded down, with not half the store of sweet stuff cleaned out. What in the wide world can we do with it all? I guess this is a case of too much of a good thing."
"I know!" declared Chatz, suddenly; "in prowling around that haunted house I saw several old stone jars in what was once used as a pantry. Let's go over and lug the same to camp, Lil Artha. They can be washed out clean, and will hold all that honey, I assure you, suh. And we can carry most of the same back home with us to show other scouts what we've been doing up here in the woods."
So the pair hastened away, and after a while came back with the stone crocks or jars, each of which would hold several gallons. Elmer pronounced them the finest possible thing for holding their rich find, and proceeded to cleanse them thoroughly at the spring, after which the various cooking receptacles were emptied, and both Chatz and Lil Artha started eagerly back to the fountainhead for a fresh supply.
They certainly cleaned out the best part of that tree hive during the next hour, and had four jars full of splendid honey, some of it as clear as crystal. It was the greatest "harvest home" the Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts had ever experienced; and they seemed never to get quite enough of the sweet stuff, for every one kept tasting as new supplies were disclosed by splitting the tree further.
Finally, however, it came to an end, and the distracted bees were let alone with the sad wreck of their once fine hive. Perhaps, if they survived the chill of the coming night, some of them would start in fresh, and carry away enough of the discolored honey, refused by the discriminating scouts, to start a new hive, and keep the swarm alive during the winter.
Nobody seemed furiously hungry as the afternoon waned and the shades of night began to gather around the camp. This was hardly to be wondered at, however, since they had tasted so much honey for hours that it took away their customary zest for ordinary food. Elmer told them it was a bad thing, and every fellow promised that from that time on he would take his sweet stuff in moderation.
Of course they cooked some dinner; and after once getting a taste of the fried onions and potatoes it seemed that to some degree their fickle appetites did return, so that the food vanished in the end.
"I'm thinking about all that darker honey we left there," Lil Artha was saying, as they sat around the crackling fire long after night had fallen, and supper had been disposed of an hour or more.
"My starth!" ejaculated Ted, "I hope now you don't want to lay in any more of the thweet thtuff, do you, Lil Artha? Why, we'll be thticky all over with it. Don't be a hog. Leave thome to the poor little beeth; and it didn't look real nice, you know."
"Oh! I wasn't regretting that we couldn't make a clean sweep," explained the tall scout, whose face was once more gradually resuming its normal appearance; "but if what I've read is true, up in some places where they have black bears, they always set a watch when they've cut down a bee tree. You see, the smell of the honey is in the air, and if there's a bruin inside of five miles he'll be visiting that broken tree hive before morning, when the watcher can send a bullet into him."
"But you don't think there are bears around here, do you?" asked George, always to be found on the side of the opposition.
"Well, hardly," replied Lil Artha, "though some of us wish it might be so, because we've got a gun along, and they say bear steak isn't half bad when you're in camp, even if it does taste like dry tough beef when you're at home, and sitting down with a white table cloth before you. I'd like to try some, that's what; but this expedition wasn't started for a bear hunt, you know."
"No, that's so," Ty Collins remarked; "more likely a ghost hunt," and he gave Chatz a sly look out of the corner of his eye as he said this.
"That was meant for me, suh," Chatz said, with dignity; "you think you can laugh at me because I'm weak enough to believe there may be such a thing as a ghost. But if you-all are so sure nothing of the kind ever could happen, what's to hinder me from having the entire camp along to-night when I go over there and hide, to watch what happens at exactly midnight?"
Elmer laughed softly.
"Do you mean that as a dare, Chatz?" he asked.
"Take it as you please, suh; and we'll soon see who believes in ghosts or not; because the one who backs down first is likely after all to be afraid of meeting up with visitors from the spirit land."
"Who's going along with Chatz and myself?" asked Elmer, turning to the circling scouts; who began to look serious, and cast quick glances toward each other.
"Oh! I'll keep you company, Elmer!" said George, first of all; for somehow he fancied everybody was staring hard at him, and not for worlds would he allow them to think he was afraid.
"Count me in!" added Ty Collins, with a laugh, that bordered on the reckless.
"I'll go along, too," observed Ted.
Landy Smith hastened to nod his head in the affirmative when Elmer looked at him; Lil Artha spoke up and said he was bound to be one of the number; and finally Toby completed the list by signifying that he was ready to sacrifice himself also.