“Oui, I get you ze lantern,” said the woman. “Look in ze barn. Look anywhere. But I see no honey. I know nottings about it. I get you anyt’ing, only you take dose bees away.”
Though the bees had ceased flying, there were many of them still crawling about the log barn, and in the lantern-light they perceived a big pile of something lightly covered with hay.
“There it is!” exclaimed Carl, with satisfaction.
It was indeed the stolen shipping cases and supers, and the hay covering had not prevented the bees from getting at them. At a glance the honey seemed to be all there. At the worst, not many of the sections were missing, though the honey was presumably all cleaned out of them. There were a good many bees still in the boxes, and the floor was covered with dead insects. Evidently they had fought ferociously over the plunder.
“Quite a load of stuff to take home in the boat,” remarked Carl, as they surveyed the rescued honey.
“Yes, but if all the honey is out of it, it won’t be heavy, I fancy,” said Bob. “I saw an old wheelbarrow around here, and we’ll use it to take the stuff to the boat. We absolutely must get it all home to-night, before these people recover from their shock.”
The top cases of honey were indeed light, and seemed to contain nothing but empty combs—hardly that, in fact, for the wax sifted out in fine powder, for it had been torn to pieces by the frenzied bees. But as they went deeper the boxes grew heavier; some of them seemed almost full weight, though no doubt they were all damaged enough to be unsaleable.
It took three boat-loads to get the honey back home, and it was hard and heavy work pulling it up against the current. Alice was jubilant, and when they came up with the second load she had a supper of bacon, trout, cold partridge, and hot coffee ready for them. They needed it; food had never tasted so good; and after finishing everything in sight, they went back for the last load.
“We ought to bring those six hives of bees home, too,” said Carl, uneasily.
“I suppose we should, but who cares?” replied Bob. “I’m dead tired, and I wouldn’t row up that river again for a whole apiary. Larue doesn’t know where they are. We’ll bring them up at sunrise in the morning. I’m going to bed.”