“Worth maybe three hundred dollars,” Bob commented, doubtfully, “with freight to be deducted from that. Not what we counted on, by a long way.”
“Never mind!” said Joe. “I’ll try to screw more out of Burnam.”
The steamer would not return for two or three more days. She would carry the honey down to Mobile, and when she came up next she would leave a barge at the bayou mouth on which the bees would be loaded, to be later transported to a point from which they could be hauled to the railway. The days of the River Island apiary were growing few, but the really big enterprise was just about to begin. And it was an enterprise for which they were quite inadequately supplied with funds, as they realized more than ever since the disappointing result of the honey crop.
Alice was looking after her new queens the next day, with Joe acting as her assistant, and the others were variously engaged about the rear of the cabin, when with startling suddenness there was a heavy “thud!” close at hand, followed by a distant explosion and an echo over the swamp.
“Duck! That was a rifle shot!” exclaimed Joe, dragging Alice down behind the bee-hives. He heard an exclamation from Bob; then there was dead silence. He could not make out where the shot had been fired. He expected more to follow, and for some fifteen minutes they all remained close under cover. Then Carl dodged toward the cabin door, evidently to secure a weapon, but he stopped short and uttered a lamentable cry of dismay.
Joe took a chance, and went to see what had happened. One of the barrels of honey had been shot through and through with a large-caliber bullet, and it now stood in a great dark, sticky pool.
“Plug it, quick!” Carl exclaimed.
But it was too late. Down to the level of the bullet-hole the honey had run out, more than three-fourths of the barrel. Alice had hurried up, and Bob also approached, and they looked at the loss in anger and dismay.
“Go around behind the shack, Allie,” Bob ordered. “That fellow may shoot again. And we’ve got to protect these other barrels. Build a breastwork around ’em, or we won’t have anything to ship.”
Expecting another shot at every moment, the boys dragged up logs and heaped earth to make a bullet-proof fortification around the precious barrels. But no more shots were fired at that time, and they retreated at last behind the cabin, leaving the honey protected.