When the meal was finished, or rather, when every thing set before them had vanished, Sneak rose up and thrust his long neck out of the aperture.

“What are you looking at?” asked Joe.

“I’m looking at the warm sun shining agin yonder side of the hill,” said Sneak; “how’d you like to go a bee-hunting?”

“A bee-hunting!” iterated Joe.  “I wonder if you think we could find a bee at this season of the year? and I should like to know what it’d be worth when we found it.”

“Plague take the bee—­I mean the honey—­don’t you like wild honey?” continued Sneak.

“Yes,” said Joe; “but how can you find any when there’s such a snow as this on the ground?”

“When there’s a snow, that’s the time to find ’em,” said Sneak; “peticuly when the sun shines warm.  Jest come out here and look,” he continued, stepping along, and followed by Joe; “don’t you see yander big stooping limb?”

“Yes,” replied Joe, gazing at the bough pointed out.

“Well,” continued Sneak, “there’s a bee’s nest in that.  Look here,” he added, picking from the snow several dead bees that had been thrown from the hive; “now this is the way with all wild bees (but these are tame, for they live in my house), for when there comes a warm day they’re sartin as fate to throw out the dead ones, and we can find where they are as easy as any thing in the world.”

“Sneak, my mouth’s watering—­suppose we take the axe and go and hunt for some honey.”

“Let’s be off, then,” said Sneak, getting his axe, and preparing to place the stone against the tree.

“Stop, Sneak,” said Joe; “let me get my gun before you shut the door.”

“I guess we’d better leave our guns, and then we won’t be so apt to break through,” replied Sneak, closing up the aperture.

“The bees won’t sting us, will they?” asked Joe, turning to his companion when they had attained the high-timbered ridge that ran parallel with the valley.

“If you chaw ’em in your mouth they will,” replied Sneak, striding along under the trees with his head bent down, and minutely examining every small dark object he found lying on the surface of the snow.

“I know that as well as you do,” continued Joe, “because that would thaw them.”

“Well, if they’re froze, how kin they sting you?”

“You needn’t be so snappish,” replied Joe.  “I just asked for information.  I know as well as anybody they’re frozen or torpid.”

“Or what?” asked Sneak.

“Torpid,” said Joe.

“I’ll try to ’member that word,” continued Sneak, peeping under a spreading oak that was surrounded by a dense hazel thicket.

“Do,” continued Joe, contemptuously, “and if you’ll only recollect all you hear me say, you may get a tolerable education after a while.”

“I’ll be shivered if this ain’t the edication I wan’t,” said Sneak, turning round with one or two dead bees in his hand, that he had found near the root of the tree.