First, however, they had to arrange for a teamster to go out to the apiary for the honey; then they had to make some purchases in the village, and when they had finished their errands, it was too late for the long pull up the river that afternoon. So they all stayed at the hotel and started up-stream at eight o’clock the next morning.
It was nearly noon when they arrived at the apiary landing, and they were tired, but light-hearted with success. They went up toward the cabin with their arms full of packages, and suddenly Alice, who was in front, uttered a sharp cry.
A cloud of robber bees hung roaring about the cabin. The door, which they had left locked, stood half open. They dropped their parcels and rushed up. The main room was swarming with bees, but fortunately the screen door into the honey room was shut, and they had not been able to get in, though they were trying hard.
But a glance through the wire showed that the honey had been pillaged. The piles of supers were overturned; so were the stacks of full shipping cases, and half of them seemed to be gone.
Alice gave one glance through the door at the wreck and then dropped on a bench and hid her face in her hands. Bob rushed into the store-room, with Carl at his heels.
A great part of the best honey was gone—nearly all the “No. 1” grade and some of the “Fancy.” They could not tell accurately at the moment how much. More than a thousand pounds seemed to be missing, but the thief had abstained from taking any of the unsaleable sections.
“It can’t have been gone long!” said Carl, excitedly. “Let’s see if there are any tracks.”
As they hastened out they noticed that the heavy staple that held the padlock had been pried off. The ground near the door was too hard to show tracks, but a little way from the river they found footprints heading toward the cabin, and in the gravel along the shore they found the mark where a boat had been drawn up.
“Gone by water!” said Bob grimly. “Do you suppose it was that half-breed squatter?”
“There’s no one else living along the river within ten miles. He must have seen us all going down the river yesterday, and knew that he had a clear field. What fools we were to leave all that honey. We’re done for now!”