Oak Openings | Page 8

found their
hive among them. In order to settle this material question, a new
process was necessary.
"I must 'angle' for them chaps," repeated le Bourdon; "and if you will
go with me, strangers, you shall soon see the nicest part of the business
of bee-hunting. Many a man who can 'line' a bee, can do nothing at an
'angle'."
As this was only gibberish to the listeners, no answer was made, but all
prepared to follow Ben, who was soon ready to change his ground. The
bee-hunter took his way across the open ground to a point fully a
hundred rods distant from his first position, where he found another
stump of a fallen tree, which he converted into a stand. The same
process was gone through with as before, and le Bourdon was soon
watching two bees that had plunged their heads down into the cells of
the comb. Nothing could exceed the gravity and attention of the Indians,
all this time. They had fully comprehended the business of "lining" the
insects toward their hives, but they could not understand the virtue of
the "angle." The first bore so strong an affinity to their own pursuit of
game, as to be very obvious to their senses; but the last included a
species of information to which they were total strangers. Nor were
they much the wiser after le Bourdon had taken his "angle"; it requiring

a sort of induction to which they were not accustomed, in order to put
the several parts of his proceedings together, and to draw the inference.
As for Gershom, he affected to be familiar with all that was going on,
though he was just as ignorant as the Indians themselves. This little bit
of hypocrisy was the homage he paid to his white blood: it being very
unseemly, according to his view of the matter, for a pale-face not to
know more than a redskin.
The bees were some little time in filling themselves. At length one of
them came out of his cell, and was evidently getting ready for his flight.
Ben beckoned to the spectators to stand farther back, in order to give
him a fair chance, and, just as he had done so, the bee rose. After
humming around the stump for an instant, away the insect flew, taking
a course almost at right angles to that in which le Bourdon had
expected to see it fly. It required half a minute for him to recollect that
this little creature had gone off in a line nearly parallel to that which
had been taken by the second of the bees, which he had seen quit his
original position. The line led across the neighboring prairie, and any
attempt to follow these bees was hopeless.
But the second creature was also soon ready, and when it darted away,
le Bourdon, to his manifest delight, saw that it held its flight toward the
point of the swamp INTO, or OVER which two of his first captives had
gone. This settled the doubtful matter. Had the hive of these bees been
BEYOND that wood, the angle of intersection would not have been
there, but at the hive across the prairie. The reader will understand that
creatures which obey an instinct, or such a reason as bees possess,
would never make a curvature in their flights without some strong
motive for it. Thus, two bees taken from flowers that stood half a mile
apart would be certain not to cross each other's tracks, in returning
home, until they met at the common hive: and wherever the intersecting
angle in their respective flights may be, there would that hive be also.
As this repository of sweets was the game le Bourdon had in view, it is
easy to see how much he was pleased when the direction taken by the
last of his bees gave him the necessary assurance that its home would
certainly be found in that very point of dense wood.

CHAPTER II.
How skilfully it builds its cell, How neat it spreads the wax, And labors
hard to store it well, With the sweet food it makes. WATTS' HYMNS
FOR CHILDREN.
The next thing was to ascertain which was the particular tree in which
the bees had found a shelter. Collecting his implements, le Bourdon
was soon ready, and, with a light elastic tread, he moved off toward the
point of the wood, followed by the whole party. The distance was about
half a mile, and men so much accustomed to use their limbs made light
of it. In a few minutes all were there, and the bee-hunter was busy in
looking for his tree. This was the consummation of the whole process,
and Ben was not only provided for the necessities of the