The Oak-Openings Or The Bee-Hunter Author:James Fenimore Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: invention of man, asd the rest soon after were led away by their chiefs to seek some new deposit for the fruits of their industry. CHAPTER IV. It was noon ... more »before Ben and Gershom dared to commence the process of cutting and splitting the tree, in order to obtain the honey. Until then, the bees lingered around their fallen hive, and it would have been dangerous to venture beyond the smoke and heat, in order to accomplish the task. It is true, le Bourdon possessed several secrets, of more or less virtue, to drive off the bees when disposed to assault him, but not one that was as certain as a good fire, backed by a dense column of vapour. Various plants are thought to be so offensive to the insects, that they avoid even their odour; and the bee-hunter had faith in one or two of them; but none of the right sort happened now to be near, and he was obliged to trust, first to a powerful heat, and next to the vapour of damp wood. As there were axes, and wedges, and a beetle in the canoe, and Gershom was as expert with those implements as a master of fencing is with his foil, to say nothing of the skill of le Bourdon, the tree was soon laid open, and its ample stores of sweets exposed. In the course of the afternoon the honey was deposited in kegs, the kegs were transferred to the canoe, and the whole deposited in the chiente. The day had been one of toil, and when our two border-men sat down near the spring, to take their evening meal, each felt glad that his work was done. " I believe this must be the last hive I line, this summer," said le Bourdon, while eating his supper. " My luck has been good so far, but in troublesome times one had better not be too far from home. I am surprised, Waring, that you have ventured so far from your family, while the tidings are so gloomy." ...« less