“Seeing this, we closed them again; and Cudjo went to work with his axe, cutting all around the tree. And the way he did ply that axe! he seemed to have a wager against time. It was beautiful to see the style in which the chips flew!
“At length the tree began to crack, and we all stood out from it, except Cudjo, who understood which way it would fall, and was not afraid of being crushed. Not he! for Cudjo could ‘lay’ a tree wherever it was wanted to the breadth of a hair.
“‘Cr–r–r–ack!—cr–r–r–r–ash!’ said the great sycamore, and down it came, shivering its branches into an hundred sticks as it fell.
“It had scarcely touched the ground, when we saw Cudjo attack it at another point with his axe, as though it were some great monster, and he trying to cut off its head.
“In a few minutes more he had laid open the cavity, close to the combs; and, to our great satisfaction, we saw that the fire had not yet reached them. They were well smoked, however, and completely deserted by the bees; so that we used neither our masks nor gloves in gathering the honey. Bruin had been before us, but he had not been long at his meal when we intruded upon him, as only one or two of the combs were missing. Enough was left. It was evidently a very old hive, and there was honey enough to fill all the vessels we had brought with us.
“We bundled the bear into the cart—as his hams and skin were worth the trouble—and leaving the old sycamore to burn out, we turned our faces homeward.”