bee tree. I did not tell him that I had
found the tree that the other line of bees went to, but agreed with
him. I told him to mark the tree that he had located and then he
could go and locate the other tree if he wished while I would go to
camp and be getting grub ready.

In about three-quarters of an hour Smoky came to camp and began
washing for dinner and said not a word. When I saw that Smoky would
not talk, I said, "Well, Smoky, did you find the other bee tree?" He
said, "Oh! you keep right on baking flapjacks." Well, after Smoky
regained his speech and told how blamed bright I was, he was going to
go right to work and take out the honey from one of the trees at
once. I told him that as we had no screen to put over his face, the
bees would sting him to death, and that he had better wait until
early the next morning when it was frosty.

Smoky said that he would not go without honey for the flapjacks when
we had two bee trees so close to the camp. So he took an old burlap
and removed every other thread in a space of about ten inches square,
making a sort of an open-work to cover his face, then pulling the
sack over his head and buttoning his coat close up about his throat
Smoky was ready for the fray.

He cut the birch tree, the one that I had located, that tree being a
little closer to camp. There was over a hundred pounds of honey in
the tree and we had only one large pail in the camp, and that we had
to have to use as a water pail. The tree did not break in falling so
as to break up the honey and waste it. While we cut a large beech
tree and took a block of about four feet long and split it in half
and dug out two large troughs to hold the honey, which was very nice,
being nearly all white honey, and Smoky said, "Old Golden, won't we
live high now, rabbit, partridge, baked potatoes, buckwheat flapjacks
and honey to swim in."

It was now the 20th of October. I told Smoky that we would go up the
creek a mile above camp and put out the bee bait, burn more honey
comb, and leave the bee box on the stand and await results. In the
meantime we would take a couple of bear traps and go on to a ridge
and set them. It might be possible that we would get a bear, although
we had not seen any bear signs on what ground we had been over. We
took the traps, Smoky carrying them, while I carried the bait. The
hill was high and rough and I found it about all that I was able to
do to climb although I went very slow and rested oft