Anyway, here they were still winging their way to and from the prostrate tree, the sentries keeping watch at the entrance to their increasing store of honey.
Oliver had found the tree two weeks before, purely by accident. At that time the hole at which the workers entered had been unobstructed. Now, though, tall weeds had grown up about the tree, making a screen before the hole and preventing the nectar-laden insects from entering readily.
"This won't do at-all-at-all," he said to Jessamy, as she took her seat on a limb of the bee tree. "There must be nothing to obstruct them in entering, for sometimes they drop with their loads when they have difficulty in winging directly in, and can't get up again."
"Uh-huh," she concurred.
She had unlaid one of her black braids and was replaiting it again after the havoc wrought by the prickly bushes.
Oliver lighted his bee-smoker and sent several soft puffs into the hole to quiet the bees. Then without gloves or veil, which the experienced beeman seldom uses, he laid hold of the tall weeds and began uprooting them. Thus engaged, he kneeled down and reached under the tree trunk to get at the roots of certain obstinate plants; and in that instant he felt a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his wrist.
"Ouch! Holy Moses!" he croaked. "I didn't expect to find a bee under there!"
"Get stung?"
"Did I! Mother of Mike! I've been stung many times, but that lady must have been the grandmother of—Why, I'm getting sick—dizzy!—"
He came to a pause, swayed on his knees, and closed his eyes. Then came that heart-chilling sound which, once heard, will never be forgotten, and will ever bring cold terror to mankind—the rattlebone whir-r-r-r-r of the diamond-back rattlesnake.