"No, you may get stung and fall down. I will be there in a minute."
The guide descended much faster than he had gone up. Reaching the ground, he eyed the tree critically, then shinned up it with somewhat more speed than he had climbed in the first instance.
"This is the bee tree," he called down before he got to the crotch. Cale then hastily got down, covered his face with a head protector of netting, put on his gloves, then went up again. No sooner had he reached the crotch than a black swarm enveloped his head and body. The infuriated bees were attacking him from all sides.
"Anything there?" called Tad.
"I should say there is! I won't take it all."
"How are you going to get the honey down?" asked Ned.
"I will pass it down to you. I have a long rope with me."
Wrapping several combs of honey in a second piece of netting, which he fastened to the end of his rope, the guide lowered it to the waiting hands of the Pony Rider Boys. It was a sticky mess. Stacy Brown was so full of anticipation that he forgot his stings for the moment, and his were the first hands to reach the bundle. As he grasped it, Stacy uttered a piercing scream and clapped both hands to his eyes. His head was covered with the angry bees, and they were peppering every exposed part of his face.
"Oh, wow!" howled the fat boy, starting away on a run. He fell over a log and went rolling and groveling in the brush and dead leaves.
"Have you anything that will help him, Professor?" asked Tad. "I guess he has been pretty badly stung."