“Better let up, Ham,” shouted Phil.  “The bees will be after the sweetness in that melody of yours.”

Phil stretched out at full length in the sun while Mr. Allen busily made figures and sketches in his note book.  Willis rose and started down the trail toward the bee tree.  At the edge of the timber he stopped, and a curious smile spread over his face.  Then suddenly, as the real significance of what he saw dawned upon him, he doubled up with a howl and laughed till his sides hurt.

The fellows were unable to roll over the great dead tree, so had decided to “smudge the brutes out,” as Ham said.  Accordingly, they built a fire at the side where the bees had been seen to enter the tree.  Chuck had carried water from the stream in his hat to make the fire smoke, and, as they watched the hole, the bees came swarming out at the end of the log behind them, “with spears sharpened and ready for action,” as Ham afterward said.  Such lively gymnastics and hurried departures Willis had never before witnessed.  Fat completely forgot that he was hungry, and Ham took occasion to severely chastise himself, using his old felt hat for a paddle, while Chuck went ploughing through the underbrush like a young bull-moose, murmuring strange, inarticulate sentences.  Fortunately for them all, the bee tree was nothing but a nest of marsh-wasps, and there were nowhere near as many as Chuck declared there were.  The damage was slight to all except Fat, and he had enough signs of battle to warrant a leather medal for bravery.  The saddest thing was that the hoped-for “milk and honey” did not materialize.

As the party sat together eating the last of their rations, Ham fell into one of his philosophical moods.

“I like this kind of life,” he began.  “Out here you let go your hold on man-made things and shift for yourself.”  He looked cautiously over at Fat, who was trying to scratch a particularly itchy sting just out of reach in the middle of his back.  “I like the unchanging condition of nature,” he continued.  “The wilderness is all yours, and you may take from it all the essentials of primitive living—­shelter, warmth, and food.”

“Ham, you’re an unmitigated prevaricator,” cried Fat as he scratched and made faces.  Ham paid no attention to him.  “Here in the open country you can get mighty close to the great wilderness with its myriads of busy lives, and—­” Fat picked up a pine cone and threw it, but Ham disappeared around the end of the big rock.

“Ham, you’re just like the loons we have on the Michigan lakes,” taunted Willis.  “You can do and say more crazy things than all the rest of us ducks put together; but when any one takes a shot at you, you’re out of sight.”