The wooden platter was first placed on this rude table. Then le
Bourdon opened his small box, and took out of it a piece of
honeycomb, that was circular in shape, and about an inch and a half
in diameter. The little covered tin vessel was next brought into
use. Some pure and beautifully clear honey was poured from its spout
into the cells of the piece of comb, until each of them was about
half filled. The tumbler was next taken in hand, carefully wiped,
and examined, by holding it up before the eyes of the bee-hunter.
Certainly, there was little to admire in it, but it was sufficiently
transparent to answer his purposes. All he asked was to be able to
look through the glass in order to see what was going on in its
interior.

Having made these preliminary arrangements, Buzzing Ben--for the
sobriquet was applied to him in this form quite as often as in the
other--next turned his attention to the velvet-like covering of the
grassy glade. Fire had run over the whole region late that spring,
and the grass was now as fresh, and sweet and short, as if the place
were pastured. The white clover, in particular, abounded, and was
then just bursting forth into the blossom. Various other flowers had
also appeared, and around them were buzzing thousands of bees. These
industrious little animals were hard at work, loading themselves
with sweets; little foreseeing the robbery contemplated by the craft
of man. As le Bourdon moved stealthily among the flowers and their
humming visitors, the eyes of the two red men followed his smallest
movement, as the cat watches the mouse; but Gershom was less
attentive, thinking the whole curious enough, but preferring whiskey
to all the honey on earth.

At length le Bourdon found a bee to his mind, and watching the