“Yes,” said Bob, grimly. “We may as well extract all we can—and then ship all the bees away, and melt up the combs into wax, and burn up the hives. For if we once leave here, we’ll never come back and find any apiary.”
CHAPTER XIV
UNDER FIRE
There was a half minute of dismayed silence at this pronouncement.
“I’m afraid Bob’s right,” said Joe. “If we go away from here those river pirates will surely destroy everything we’ve left and burn the cabin too, to make sure that we won’t come back.”
“But I won’t give up these bees!” Alice rebelled. “We’ve worked too hard for them. Melt up all these beautiful new combs? Never!”
But nobody found any comfort for her. What Joe had said was plainly only too true.
“Well, let’s hide all this loot away,” said Carl glumly at last. “We’ve probably got a month to work in, anyhow.”
They restored the pirates’ treasure to its former hiding-place, and Bob nailed the boards down. Nobody spoke much; they were all depressed. They might have a month’s grace indeed; they might take off some honey and ship some packages of bees; but the notion of being compelled to tear all this well-established and valuable apiary to pieces, saving only the fragments, was bitterly distasteful to all of them.
Alice had appeared lost in deep meditation for some time. At last she broke out, with an air of new resolution.
“I’m simply not going to give all this up!” she announced. “Look here, why can’t we ship this whole outfit North?”