“Did you ever satisfy yourself as to how its leg was broken?” said Nic.
“No, my boy; and I did not want to. I have my suspicions, but I let them rest. It is the same at most of the stations—the free men dislike the bond. It is natural. And now that things are going on peaceably, we will let them rest.”
One day, quite by accident, the boy found himself thrown in contact again with Leather, whose brown, deeply lined countenance always brightened when Nic came across him somewhere with his sheep.
“I say, Leather,” he said, as he sat on his nag watching the man busily carving a stick he had cut: “you remember telling me about how the blacks followed the bees?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you show me?”
“Yes,” said Leather, smiling sadly; and he looked about till he found a tree with some of its seed-vessels full of fine silky cotton, smeared one end of a twig with a bead of gum from another tree, and then walked on, followed by Nic, till they came to a patch of bushes, whose fragrant blossoms had attracted the bees by the dozen.
One pollen-laden fellow was soon caught, the gum stick touched its back, the white cotton was brought in contact, and the uninjured insect set free.
Up in the air it went at once, regardless of the yellow flowers among which it had been buzzing, and then flew away in a straight line, with its white patch on its back, to be traced some forty or fifty yards, before it disappeared among the trees.
“Gone!” said Nic, who was in advance, for he had followed the insect on horseback. “Think there’s a tree here?”