“Enough for a couple of hundred ten-frame Langstroth hives,” said Alice. “We’ll ship it down on the steamboat and make them up on the spot. We’ve ordered about four hundred dollars’ worth of supplies from Mobile too, and the boat’ll bring them up to the bayou. The freight alone is going to be an item.”
“I can save you some of that,” said Joe, suddenly remembering the old flatboat he had seen abandoned up the river.
“I’ll send word to Sam to patch it up a little and float it down here,” he added to his explanation. “Sam’s been asking me almost every day when we-all are a-goin’ to go into the bee business. He’s got the bee-fever bad. I told him I couldn’t pay him any wages now, but he’s bound to come with me just the same. He’s mighty handy with tools and he can cook, and he’ll be mighty useful to us; and if things pan out well I’ll pay him something later. It’ll only be for a couple of months anyway.”
Bob thereupon outlined the new plan of a permanent apiary that they had settled upon.
“But I’m doubtful about taking Alice down there,” he said. “It’s dangerous—a regular hang-out for river pirates.”
“Well, she’ll be safer than any of us,” said Joe. “The worst of these gangs in this country wouldn’t molest a white girl. Besides, I don’t expect we’ll see any more of the houseboat men. They’re gone. They’ve cleaned up their rosin deal, and they won’t want to hang around that place any more. Even if they did turn up, they’d have no occasion to pick a quarrel with us. They wouldn’t recognize Bob or me; they never set eyes on us. We won’t have anything they’d want to steal, for they sure wouldn’t touch those bees. No, I think it’s perfectly safe; and there’ll be four of us anyway, all with guns. But I’m afraid it’ll be a rather rough proposition for a girl.”
“Not any worse than we had up North,” retorted Alice. “I can stand anything that Bob and Carl can, and I don’t know how they’d get along without me. They’d be lost! No, I’m going down with the rest of you when the steamboat goes.”
That would not be for nearly a week, and in the meantime Joe managed to get a message through to Sam, who was still at Burnam’s. The result was that a couple days later the negro arrived at Magnolia Landing in the old flatboat. He had patched it somewhat, but the old hull still leaked like a sieve, and Sam had navigated it standing knee-deep in water. But the immersion and swelling was already closing the cracks, and another bout of calking would probably make it nearly water-tight.
Joe spent all day working over it with Sam, capsizing it on the shore, and melting rosin and tar. It still leaked a trifle when they had done their best, but wet would not damage most of the cargo, and they hauled the freight down to the landing. It made a full load, a regular “Robinson Crusoe outfit,” as Carl said—the hive-lumber, odd-sized boards for repairs and making furniture, food supplies, cooking-utensils, the tent, bedding, tools, and weapons—and the new supplies from Mobile were still to come.
“I don’t know about our not having anything worth stealing!” Bob commented as he looked at the load.