“I’ll do that same and without delay, me lad,” he declared. “I’ve got a notion this very minute that I know where I might find my bear; and after nightfall I’ll bait the ground wid some ould combs av wild honey.”
“Wild honey did you say?” asked Jud, licking his lips in anticipation, for if there was one thing to eat in all the wide world Jud liked better than another it was the sweets from the hive.
“Och! ’tis mesilf that has stacks av the same laid away, and I promise ye all ye kin eat while ye stay here,” the woodsman told them, at which Jud executed a pigeon-wing to express his satisfaction.
“And did you gather it yourself around here, Tolly Tip?” he inquired.
“Nawthin’ else,” acknowledged the old trapper. “Ye say, whin Mister Garrity do be staying down in town it’s small work I have to do; and to locate a bee tree is a rale pleasure. Some time I’ll till 136 ye how we go about the thrick. Av course there’s no use tryin’ it afther winter sets in, for the bees stick in the hive.”
“And bears just dote on honey, do they, the same as Jud here does?” asked Frank.
“A bear kin smell honey a mile away,” the woodsman declared. “In fact, the very last time I glimpsed the ould varmint we’ve been spakin’ about ’twas at the bee tree I’d chopped down. I wint home to sacure some pails, and whin I got back to the spot there the ould beast was a lickin’ up the stuff in big gobs. Sure I could have shot him aisy enough, but I had made up me mind to take him in a trap or not at all, so I lit him go.”
“So he got his share of the honey, did he?” asked Jud.
“Oh! I lift him all I didn’t want, and set a trap to nab him, but by me word he was too smart for Tolly Tip.”
“Then I hope you salt the ground to-night,” remarked Paul, “and that I can set my camera to-morrow evening and see what comes of it.”