ut, "Hello!" The voice
sounded familiar and, glancing across the gully, I saw Willis Murch
coming through the woods. Seeing us pass his house and knowing what we
were in quest of, Willis, curious to know what success we would have,
had followed us. He had lost track of us in the woods for a time, but
had finally heard the basswood fall and then had found us.

Even at that distance across the gully I saw Willis's face break into a
grin when he saw me perched in the hemlock. For the present, however, I
was too much worried to be proud and implored his aid. He looked round a
while, exchanged a few words with old Hughy and then hailed me.

"I guess we shall have to fell that hemlock to get you down," he
shouted, laughing.

Naturally, I did not want that done.

"I shall have to go home for a long rope," he went on, becoming serious.
"If we can get the end of a rope up there, you can tie it to a limb and
then come down hand over hand. But I don't think our folks have a rope
long enough; I may have to go round to the old Squire's for one."

Since old Hughy had no better plan to suggest, Willis set off on the
run. As the distance was fully two miles, I had a long wait before me,
and so I made myself as comfortable as I could on the limb and settled
down to wait.

Old Hughy hobbled down into the gully with his kettle and tried to
smother the bees by putting the brimstone close to the cleft in the tree
trunk and setting it afire; but, although the fumes rose so pungently
that I was obliged to hold my nose to keep from being smothered, the
effect on the bees was not noticeable. Old Hughy then tried throwing
water on them. The water was more efficacious than the brimstone, and
before Willis returned the old man was able to cut out a section of the
tree trunk and fill his two pails with the dripping combs--all of which
I viewed not any too happily from aloft.

Willis appeared at last with the coil of rope. With him came Addison and
Halstead, much out of breath, and a few minutes later the old Squire
himself arrived. They said that grandmother Ruth also was on the way.
Willis, it seems, had spread alarming reports of my predicament.

Willis and Addison tied numerous knots in the rope so that it should not
slip through my hands and knotted a flat stone into the end of it. Then
they took turns in throwing it up toward me until at length I caught it
and tied it firmly to the limb on which I was sitting. Then I ventured
to trust