"Mr. Hardy, my cousin and I wish to present this pelt to you as a small token of our appreciation of your kindness to us."
Following Ted's lead, Buck also was formal in accepting, walking over awkwardly and shaking hands, as he said: "This sure is nice of you, boys; I'll think more of that skin than any I ever had."
XI
AS the three slackers, Hardy, Peters and Jones, were getting ready to leave camp and go about their unfinished business of the day, Ted wondered how he could turn his new popularity to account. With the help of the greater friendliness the morning's adventure had brought him, could he not induce the slackers to listen to another appeal as they sat around the fire that night? With his mind full of thoughts of what he hoped to be allowed to say, the boy little dreamed that he was to win even greater renown as a hunter that very afternoon.
His discovery of a bee tree was what led to the second adventure. While he and Hubert were bringing in the dead wild-cat they stopped for a short rest under a tall pine about three quarters of a mile from the camp. As they sat there, Ted looked up and noted a black, quivering line against the bright sky that seemed to stream out from the trunk of the tree just above the lowest branch and about fifty feet from the ground. His curiosity aroused, the boy rose to get a better look, and then made certain that the black, quivering line was composed of flying insects.
"Hubert, look!" he cried. "Those must be bees and this must be a bee tree."
Ted now suddenly recalled this incident, as the slackers were moving away, and, rising, he called out:
"Oh, Mr. Hardy! I ought to tell you. I think I've found a bee tree."
The three slackers turned, all attention, and Ted described what he had seen. A bee tree it certainly was, they all declared; a "mighty good find, too," for everybody would be "glad of a bait of honey."