“Used to ’em, are ye?” cried the woodsman. “Well, you ain’t used to no such bees as these here bees. Nobody durstn’t go near ’em. They killed a nigger once. He tried to rob a little honey off ’em and they done killed him. Yes, sir! Eat him alive, I reckon, for nobody never seen him again. The place is full of bones of hawgs an’ polecats an’ rabbits an’ mebbe bears that them pizen bees jest nachrally killed. You-all better not fool with ’em!”
“Thanks!” said Bob. “We’ll certainly look out for them. What’s your name? If you’re around this way we’ll see you again, perhaps.”
“My name’s Candler,” said the hunter doubtfully. “But you-all better not come by here no more. It ain’t safe. Nothin’ here but snakes an’ pizen bees, an’ they say there’s some mighty rough humans in these here swamps, too.”
Candler was rough enough himself, they thought, but he did not look quite like a river pirate. They bade him good-by and left him busied with his boat, while they retraced their path for some distance, and finally found a passable road up to the high ground again and back to the old cabin. Here they sat down to rest, and watched the “pizen bees.”
They were not vicious that afternoon. There was a good honey-flow, and they were far too busy to think of fighting. A heavy hum and roar pervaded the air. Bees were coming down in streams, dropping heavily laden into the blackberry cover, streaming out again back to the honey sources in the swamps. Tired bees with great pollen-balls fell and rested on the ground; out of the cracks in the old cabin bees flew as if from a beehive. The sun shone bright; the air was hot and damp, and the boys sat for a long time in silence and watched their prospective apiary. As Bob said, it seemed like home.
“We’ll do it, Carl!” he exclaimed at last. “We’ll build this old ruin up into something valuable, and we’ll make a permanent fixture of it. It’ll be worth a thousand dollars a year to us to have this yard to ship a fresh lot of bees and queens North every spring.”
“Hurrah! Of course it will!” cried Carl. “Alice’ll be tickled to death when she hears of this scheme. And it’ll give Joe a chance to come in too, if he wants to. We’d rather need somebody to keep an eye on these bees while we were up North.”
Bob looked at his watch.
“Let’s get into the boat and start back!” he proposed. “If we’re going to put this big job through, there isn’t an hour to lose!”