“Waal, I’d about as lief do that, as do anything else.  Good jobs is scarce, out here in the wilderness, and when a body lights of one, he ought to profit by it.  I come up here thinkin’ to meet you, for I heer’n tell from a voyager that you was a-beeing it, out in the openin’s, and there’s nawthin’ in natur’ that Dolly takes to with a greater relish than good wild honey.  ‘Try whiskey,’ I’ve told her a thousand times, ’and you’ll soon get to like that better than all the rest of creation’; but not a drop could I ever get her, or Blossom, to swallow.  It’s true, that leaves so much the more for me; but I’m a companionable crittur, and don’t think I’ve drunk as much as I want, unless I take it society-like.  That’s one reason I’ve taken so mightily to you, Bourdon; you’re not much at a pull, but you an’t downright afeared of a jug, neither.”

The bee-hunter was glad to hear that all the family had not this man’s vice, for he now plainly foresaw that the accidents of his position must bring him and these strangers much in contact, for some weeks, at least.  Le Bourdon, though not absolutely “afraid of a jug,” as Whiskey Centre had expressed it, was decidedly a temperate man; drinking but seldom, and never to excess.  He too well knew the hazards by which he was surrounded, to indulge in this way, even had he the taste for it; but he had no taste that way, one small jug of brandy forming his supply for a whole season.  In these days of exaggeration in all things, exaggeration in politics, in religion, in temperance, in virtue, and even in education, by putting “new wine into old bottles,” that one little jug might have sufficed to give him a bad name; but five-and-thirty years ago men had more real independence than they now possess, and were not as much afraid of that croquemitaine, public opinion, as they are to-day.  To be sure, it was little to le Bourdon’s taste to make a companion of such a person as Whiskey Centre; but there was no choice.  The man was an utter stranger to him; and the only means he possessed of making sure that he did not carry off the property that lay so much at his mercy, was by keeping near him.  With many men, the bee-hunter would have been uneasy at being compelled to remain alone with them in the woods; for cases in which one had murdered another, in order to get possession of the goods, in these remote regions, were talked of, among the other rumors of the borders; but Gershom had that in his air and manner that rendered Ben confident his delinquencies, at the most, would scarcely reach bloodshed.  Pilfer he might; but murder was a crime which he did not appear at all likely to commit.

After supping in company, our two adventurers secured everything; and, retiring to the chiente, they went to sleep.  No material disturbance occurred, but the night passed in tranquillity; the bee-hunter merely experiencing some slight interruption to his slumbers, from the unusual circumstance of having a companion.  One as long accustomed to be alone as himself would naturally submit to some such sensation, our habits getting so completely the mastery as often to supplant even nature.