Part 13 (1/2)

Every scout managed to acc.u.mulate one or more lumps, however, for the air was heavily charged with the bewildered insects, now homeless on a fall afternoon; and although the boys did a great deal of dodging they could not avoid contact all the time. But then the sight of that splendid honey made them forget their present troubles. They s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bottle of witch hazel, or applied the ammonia solution recklessly, to immediately start in again working like heroes.

Elmer started back to camp bearing their one bucket actually full of the most delicious honey he had ever tasted; and soon afterwards Lil Artha followed with two kettles also heavily laden with the same.

When Chatz came along with several heavy honeycombs secured with an arrangement consisting of cords, and stout twigs from some hickory tree, the three looked at each other in dire dismay.

”We can't live on honey alone, you know,” Lil Artha up and said; ”and it looks like we've already got every cooking vessel loaded down, with not half the store of sweet stuff cleaned out. What in the wide world can we do with it all? I guess this is a case of too much of a good thing.”

”I know!” declared Chatz, suddenly; ”in prowling around that haunted house I saw several old stone jars in what was once used as a pantry.

Let's go over and lug the same to camp, Lil Artha. They can be washed out clean, and will hold all that honey, I a.s.sure you, suh. And we can carry most of the same back home with us to show other scouts what we've been doing up here in the woods.”

So the pair hastened away, and after a while came back with the stone crocks or jars, each of which would hold several gallons. Elmer p.r.o.nounced them the finest possible thing for holding their rich find, and proceeded to cleanse them thoroughly at the spring, after which the various cooking receptacles were emptied, and both Chatz and Lil Artha started eagerly back to the fountainhead for a fresh supply.

They certainly cleaned out the best part of that tree hive during the next hour, and had four jars full of splendid honey, some of it as clear as crystal. It was the greatest ”harvest home” the Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts had ever experienced; and they seemed never to get quite enough of the sweet stuff, for every one kept tasting as new supplies were disclosed by splitting the tree further.

Finally, however, it came to an end, and the distracted bees were let alone with the sad wreck of their once fine hive. Perhaps, if they survived the chill of the coming night, some of them would start in fresh, and carry away enough of the discolored honey, refused by the discriminating scouts, to start a new hive, and keep the swarm alive during the winter.

n.o.body seemed furiously hungry as the afternoon waned and the shades of night began to gather around the camp. This was hardly to be wondered at, however, since they had tasted so much honey for hours that it took away their customary zest for ordinary food. Elmer told them it was a bad thing, and every fellow promised that from that time on he would take his sweet stuff in moderation.

Of course they cooked some dinner; and after once getting a taste of the fried onions and potatoes it seemed that to some degree their fickle appet.i.tes did return, so that the food vanished in the end.

”I'm thinking about all that darker honey we left there,” Lil Artha was saying, as they sat around the crackling fire long after night had fallen, and supper had been disposed of an hour or more.

”My starth!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ted, ”I hope now you don't want to lay in any more of the thweet thtuff, do you, Lil Artha? Why, we'll be thticky all over with it. Don't be a hog. Leave thome to the poor little beeth; and it didn't look real nice, you know.”

”Oh! I wasn't regretting that we couldn't make a clean sweep,” explained the tall scout, whose face was once more gradually resuming its normal appearance; ”but if what I've read is true, up in some places where they have black bears, they always set a watch when they've cut down a bee tree. You see, the smell of the honey is in the air, and if there's a bruin inside of five miles he'll be visiting that broken tree hive before morning, when the watcher can send a bullet into him.”

”But you don't think there are bears around here, do you?” asked George, always to be found on the side of the opposition.

”Well, hardly,” replied Lil Artha, ”though some of us wish it might be so, because we've got a gun along, and they say bear steak isn't half bad when you're in camp, even if it does taste like dry tough beef when you're at home, and sitting down with a white table cloth before you.

I'd like to try some, that's what; but this expedition wasn't started for a bear hunt, you know.”

”No, that's so,” Ty Collins remarked; ”more likely a ghost hunt,” and he gave Chatz a sly look out of the corner of his eye as he said this.

”That was meant for me, suh,” Chatz said, with dignity; ”you think you can laugh at me because I'm weak enough to believe there may be such a thing as a ghost. But if you-all are so sure nothing of the kind ever could happen, what's to hinder me from having the entire camp along to-night when I go over there and hide, to watch what happens at exactly midnight?”

Elmer laughed softly.

”Do you mean that as a dare, Chatz?” he asked.

”Take it as you please, suh; and we'll soon see who believes in ghosts or not; because the one who backs down first is likely after all to be afraid of meeting up with visitors from the spirit land.”

”Who's going along with Chatz and myself?” asked Elmer, turning to the circling scouts; who began to look serious, and cast quick glances toward each other.

”Oh! I'll keep you company, Elmer!” said George, first of all; for somehow he fancied everybody was staring hard at him, and not for worlds would he allow them to think he was _afraid_.

”Count me in!” added Ty Collins, with a laugh, that bordered on the reckless.

”I'll go along, too,” observed Ted.