en. I did not
complain, for Smoky was doing all the complaining necessary for both
of us. He said that we would not catch a darn thing unless it was a
cold, and he didn't think that we would get that much. It proved
later that Smoky was wrong in his reckonings.

We set the two bear traps in as likely places as we could find for
bear to travel, and put in the balance of the day traveling through
the woods in search of bear signs. Not a track or sign could we find,
and when we reached camp at night I was seemingly more dead than
alive.

The next morning after we had left the bee bait on the old road bed
and then climbed the hill to set the two bear traps, Smoky said that
we would go down to Hull's, a distance of about three miles, and see
if he could get cans to put the extracted honey in. We had made a
sack from two towels and had begun to strain or extract the honey
from the comb and had the water pail nearly full of strained honey,
and were sorely in need of the pail to carry water in.

When I got to where we had left the bee bait, on the old road bed, I
found plenty of bees at work. I soon got the line which went up the
stream and a little to the left of the road and directly toward two
large soft maple trees, the only trees of any size in that direction
for a long distance. I said to myself, a quick job for you must be in
one or the other of those maples. I left the bait and went to look
for the bees in one of the two trees.

When I came to the trees, bees came to me in great numbers, but I
could not see a bee going in or out in either. I was satisfied that
the bees were in one of the trees, but after looking for a long time
I thought that I must be mistaken, that the bees were farther on and
up on the side of the hill. I gave it up and moved the bait up the
road to a point about opposite where the line would strike the
hillside and where several trees were left standing, making a good
opening by cutting away the brush. I then released the bees from the
box. After they had done much circling I was quite sure I saw two or
three of them swing back in the direction of the soft maple trees.

I left the box and went along the creek in search of mink or coon
signs, so as to give the bees time to get the bait well located, as
they will then fly so much steadier and without doing so much
circling. When I returned to the bait, the bees were flying steadily
in the direction of the two soft maples and there could be no mi