“The little honey-flies are like white men. They gather much honey for many days of rain and for all the moons of winter. They make a store in a big tree and fill it with honey, so they can stay at home and eat honey till the maple buds break and till the wild plums and wild strawberries hang out their white flowers. They are like white men, who work all the time and gather big houses full of corn and meat and make big woodpiles for the winter.
“Tumahga-tanka is like the Indian. He travels much, he often sleeps among the flowers at night, and he is always poor and hungry like the Indian.”
“Where do the bumblebees go in winter,” asked Tim, “if they do not gather enough honey to live on?”
Tatanka did not know. “Perhaps they sleep like Mahto, the bear, or like Meetcha, the bear’s little brother.”
“Will you go with us?” asked Barker, “when we go to get the honey?”
“Yes, I will go with you,” Tatanka promised. “But I do not like to fight the little black bees. They are as many as leaves on a tree, and they will get very angry and will sting when you come to rob them of their food.”
“Why shouldn’t we go at night, when they can’t see us and when it is too cool for them to fly much?” asked Bill.
“No,” said Barker, “we shall go in daylight, when we can see what we are doing.”
The sun was already several hours high, next morning, when the bee-hunters were ready.
Under a clump of sumachs Barker prepared himself for the raid. He tied a piece of mosquito netting over his hat and face. The sleeve of his hunting-shirt he tied firmly to his wrists, and he put on his buckskin hunting-gloves.
“Now, I’m ready,” he laughed. “You can sit down and watch me.”
With a saw, he had procured from the trader at Reed’s Landing, he rapidly made two cuts in the tree, one near the ground and the other just below the knot-hole entrance.
The bees came pouring out of the knot-hole. Hundreds and thousands of them buzzed madly about the trapper’s head; they crawled all over him, trying to find a spot where they could sting the robber of their treasure-house.
Some of the angry bees discovered the two spectators and Meetcha. Bill let out a yell and ran. Tatanka tried to fight them off, but some got into his hair. He gave a ringing Sioux warwhoop and tumbled after Bill in a most ludicrous manner. Little gray Meetcha had been watching the fun as if puzzled at the strange behavior of his master. But now a mad bee buzzed right into the hairs of his ear. Meetcha seemed to listen a second, then he began to paw his ears frantically and to roll in the grass. Now he sat up again, as if to listen. Some more bees were after him. Again he pawed his ears wildly, and rolled on the grass as if he were performing in a circus. Then he scampered hurriedly after Bill and Tatanka.