| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| Foreword | [9] | |
| I. | The Awakening | [15] |
| II. | The Cell-house | [20] |
| III. | Mysteries | [24] |
| IV. | The First Flight | [28] |
| V. | Robbery | [34] |
| VI. | Crip | [40] |
| VII. | Crip, the Wise | [45] |
| VIII. | A Gleaner of Honey | [50] |
| IX. | A Storm | [56] |
| X. | The Aftermath | [60] |
| XI. | The Fight with the Web-worms | [65] |
| XII. | The Wounding of Crip | [72] |
| XIII. | The Swarming Fever | [77] |
| XIV. | Perils | [86] |
| XV. | A Midnight Adventure | [95] |
| XVI. | Tidings of Woe | [101] |
| XVII. | The Death of the Queen | [106] |
| XVIII. | Crip and the Impostor | [112] |
| XIX. | Farewell | [116] |
Foreword
Years ago, banished into the far Rio Grande region, I became a keeper of bees. As a child I had loved them, even caressed them, and many a time have I held them one and a hundred at once in my hands. I knew their every mind and their wilful ways; I loved their sweet contrarieties, their happy acceptation of the inevitable, and their joyous facing of life.
So it came about that, grown older, I returned to my old engagements, and, far from human habitation, amid the wild, brush-set wilderness enveloping Lake Espantoso, I built my house and brought my bees. And, too, there came with me a little Shadow, and at his heels a shepherd-dog. There, in that land of boundless spaces, we waited and watched and dreamed.
The years went by silently, uneventfully—day following day noiselessly, as sounds die in the sea. Spring came with its bounty of flowers; and fast on the trail of retreating winter they leaped forth in multitudes: daisy and phlox and poppy and bluebonnet and Indian feather and anemone all tossed their heads and flung their beautiful wings into the sunlight. The earth was sweet with the wild, fresh sweetness of flowers. Even the cacti and the brush blossomed like roses of Cashmere, hiding their thorns amid a profusion of loveliness.
Then the winter came, brief, primordial in its changes. The brown earth and the brown-gray sweep of the horizon, stretching inimitably away, wakened in rueful contrast to the riot of the vernal months.