“Well,” remarked Allan, “nothing can be done until about noon. If the sun seems fairly warm then, we might have a chance to see bees flying, or catch the drone of the swarm of young ones trying their wings just outside the opening of the tree hive. I’ll set you all to work watching and listening; and we’ll see who the lucky one will be.”
“Seems to me a lot of fellows make a living, picking up things in these Maine woods, from honey and bees wax, to lumbermen and pulp stuff choppers?” Thad remarked, with an inquiring glance toward Allan.
“They do,” replied the other, promptly. “I could tell you a heap about these people, some of whom I’ve even met in my trips around.”
“Then go on and tell us,” urged Davy.
“Yes, we always like to know what’s doing,” added Giraffe, as he helped himself to another flapjack, which Jim, the younger guide, seemed to know how to make in a way calculated to appeal to a hungry camper’s appetite.
“Well, first of all there’s the spruce gum hunter,” Allan started to say. “You can follow the snowshoe trail of these busy chaps through pathless stretches, and find their camp-fires glowing in many a lonely glen. They get about between a dollar and a dollar and a half a pound, for the stuff, and it’s worth all of that. They usually travel in pairs, and collect many pounds in a season.”
“But how do they manage to climb some of these tall spruce trees we’ve seen on our trip?” asked Thad.
“Oh! that’s easy enough,” laughed the other. “Every spruce gum hunter has a pair of climbers with him. You’ve seen the telephone and telegraph wire men use these, fastened to their legs with straps. He has to have warm clothing; a curved chisel, in the handle of which a pole is set; a fine jack knife; and a gun. In the night he sits by the fire, smoking, while he cleans his day’s pick.”
“But he has to eat; tell us then how he totes his grub along; and where does he put up at in the woods? We haven’t run across any hotels up here, it strikes me?” asked Giraffe.
“As for his food,” Allan continued, “he drags on a moose sled, and it’s either a deserted camp, or the lee side of a tree every night, as he happens to find things. And he is satisfied with mighty little in the way of food, trusting to his gun to eke things out. With plenty of work, a few bushels of beans, some flour and molasses, and perhaps some coffee, a gum picker thinks himself well off for a winter’s campaign.”