“You mean about this wonderful woods country up in the State of Maine,” Frank went on, smiling as though the task he had been called on to shoulder pleased him, since he was a native of the State, and loved it dearly.
“Yes; something about the strange ways you said there were for men to make a living in the woods,” Bluff added.
CHAPTER IX—THE WONDERLAND OF MAINE
“I’ve already spoken about the professional honey hunter,” began Frank, “who puts in a lot of his time summers roaming the woods in certain sections, always on the lookout for bees working in the blossoms or flowers.”
“Yes,” Will broke in, “and we know how they find the hives in dead limbs of trees, by trailing working bees. They catch a bee that’s loaded with honey, or sugar water supplied by the bee hunter, and attach a little white stuff to him. This they can see for a long distance as he makes a beeline for his home.”
“That’s right, because I watched a chap doing it once,” Bluff asserted. “He kept edging closer and closer with every bee he marked, till in the end he found the hive. I saw him take a heap of good honey out of that tree, and I got beautifully stung in the bargain.”
“Then there’s the man who gathers the crooked wood that ship carpenters use for making boats’ knees,” Frank continued, marking with his fingers as he spoke. “Nearly every small boat has to have just so many. They’re mighty hard to get, even after you’ve run across the right juniper or hackmatack, because it’s necessary that they should be of a certain shape.”
“That’s sure a queer occupation,” remarked Jerry.
“Of course, there are lots of trappers up here who work all winter,” Frank observed, “just as we know our old friend, Jesse Wilcox, does out where we live. But the furs they get here are pretty valuable, though not bringing quite as high a price as others taken up in Canada and the Northwest.”
“How’s that?” demanded Bluff.