Ben used a very pure English, when his condition in life is remembered; but now and then, he encountered a word which pretty plainly proved he was not exactly a scholar.  A false emphasis has sometimes an influence on a man’s fortune, when one lives in the world; but it mattered little to one like Buzzing Ben, who seldom saw more than half a dozen human faces in the course of a whole summer’s hunting.  We remember an Englishman, however, who would never concede talents to Burr, because the latter said, a L’AmEricaine, EurOpean, instead of EuropEan.

“How hive in danger?” demanded Elksfoot, who was very much of a matter-of-fact person.  “No see him, no hear him—­else get some honey.”

“Honey you can have for asking, for I’ve plenty of it already in my cabin, though it’s somewhat ’arly in the season to begin to break in upon the store.  In general, the bee-hunters keep back till August, for they think it better to commence work when the creatures”—­this word Ben pronounced as accurately as if brought up at St. James’s, making it neither “creatur’” nor “creatOOre”—­“to commence work when the creatures have had time to fill up, after winter’s feed.  But I like the old stock, and, what is more, I feel satisfied this is not to be a common summer, and so I thought I would make an early start.”

As Ben said this, he glanced his eyes at Pigeonswing, who returned the look in a way to prove there was already a secret intelligence between them, though neither had ever seen the other an hour before.

“Waal!” exclaimed Gershom, “this is cur’ous, I’ll allow that; yes, it’s cur’ous—­but we’ve got an article at Whiskey Centre that’ll put the sweetest honey bee ever suck’d, altogether out o’ countenance!”

“An article of which you suck your share, I’ll answer for it, judging by the sign you carry between the windows of your face,” returned Ben, laughing; “but hush, men, hush.  That first bee is filled, and begins to think of home.  He’ll soon be off for honey Centre, and I must keep my eye on him.  Now, stand a little aside, friends, and give me room for my craft.”

The men complied, and le Bourdon was now all intense attention to his business.  The bee first taken had, indeed, filled itself to satiety, and at first seemed to be too heavy to rise on the wing.  After a few moments of preparation, however, up it went, circling around the spot, as if uncertain what course to take.  The eye of Ben never left it, and when the insect darted off, as it soon did, in an air-line, he saw it for fifty yards after the others had lost sight of it.  Ben took the range, and was silent fully a minute while he did so.

“That bee may have lighted in the corner of yonder swamp,” he said, pointing, as he spoke, to a bit of low land that sustained a growth of much larger trees than those which grew in the “opening,” “or it has crossed the point of the wood, and struck across the prairie beyond, and made for a bit of thick forest that is to be found about three miles further.  In the last case, I shall have my trouble for nothing.”