In a minute he let out one of the bees, and started running in the direction it flew. It went but a few feet and then rose into the tree-top.
'He's goin' t' git up into the open air,' said Uncle Eb. 'But I've got his bearins' an' I guess he knows the way all right.'
We took the direction indicated for a few minutes and then Uncle Eb let out another prisoner. The bee flew off a little way and then rose in a slanting course to the tree-tops. He showed us, however, that we were looking the right way.
'Them little fellers hev got a good compass,' said Uncle Eb, as we followed the line of the bees. 'It p'ints home ev'ry time, an' never makes a mistake.'
We went further this time before releasing another. He showed us that we had borne out of our course a little and as we turned to follow there were half a dozen bees flying around the box, as if begging for admission.
'Here they are back agin,' said Uncle Eb, 'an' they've told a lot o' their cronies 'bout the man an' the boy with honey.'
At length one of them flew over our heads and back in the direction we had come from.
'Ah, ha,' said Uncle Eb, 'it's a bee tree an' we've passed it, but I'm goin' t' keep lettin' 'em in an' out. Never heard uv a swarm o' bees goin' fur away an' so we mus' be near the clearin'.'
In a little while we let one go that took a road of its own. The others had gone back over our heads; this one bore off to the right in front of us, and we followed. I was riding in the basket and was first to see the light of the open through the tree-tops. But I didn't know what it meant until I heard the hearty 'hurrah' of Uncle Eb.
We had come to smooth footing in a grove of maples and the clean trunks of the trees stood up as straight as a granite column. Presently we came out upon wide fields of corn and clover, and as we looked back upon the grove it had a rounded front and I think of it now as the vestibule of the great forest.