“Well, no, not much,” said Nic, laughing. “But the nests must be hard to find. You won’t know that place again.”
“Oh yes, sir,” said Leather quietly, as he stood glancing up in the tree. “You see I brought you straight here. Besides, after seeing one of the blacks track the bees home it is very easy, for the country is so open. It is not like being in the dense scrub.”
“How do they track them?” asked Nic.
“Catch a bee when it is busy in a flower, touch its back with a tiny speck of gum from one of the trees, and touch the gum with a tuft of that white silky wool—”; and he picked a scrap from the seed-vessel of one of the trees.
“And what good does that do?” asked Nic.
“Good, sir? The white cotton is easily seen when the bee flies homeward, the black chasing it till perhaps he loses it. But he has got nearer to the nest, and he will do this again with other bees, till he comes at last to the place where the nest is.”
“And did you find that nest so?”
“Yes,” said Leather quietly. “I lost sight of the first bee about forty yards away; the next bee I missed too, but the last showed me the way at once. Now, then: look straight up there.”
“Oh, I can see them flying in and out plainly enough,” replied Nic.
“I was not talking about the bees then, sir. I mean away to the right a little, and a good fifty feet higher.”