Tatanka was not enthusiastic about the prospect of a bee hunt.
"The Indians," he told his friends, "do not like the little black
honey-flies. They call them white men's flies, because they came into
our country with the white man. We like Tumahga-tanka, the big
bumblebee, that builds his cells in an old mouse-nest on the ground. But
Tumahga-tanka is like the Indians: he gathers only very little honey
food, just for a day or two. Only our small boys hunt them and take
their little honey in the evening when their wings are cold and stiff so
they cannot fly on the naked body of the boys and sting them.
"The little honey-flies are like white men. They gather much honey for
many days of rain and for all the moons of winter. They make a store in
a big tree and fill it with honey, so they can stay at home and eat
honey till the maple buds break and till the wild plums and wild
strawberries hang out their white flowers. They are like white men, who
work all the time and gather big houses full of corn and meat and make
big woodpiles for the winter.
"Tumahga-tanka is like the Indian. He travels much, he often sleeps
among the flowers at night, and he is always poor and hungry like the
Indian."
"Where do the bumblebees go in winter," asked Tim, "if they do not
gather enough honey to live on?"
Tatanka did not know. "Perhaps they sleep like Mahto, the bear, or like
Meetcha, the bear's little brother."
"Will you go with us?" asked Barker, "when we go to get the honey?"
"Yes, I will go with you," Tatanka promised. "But I do not like to fight
the little black bees. They are as many as leaves on a tree, and they
will get very angry and will sting when you come to rob them of their
food."
"Why shouldn't we go at night, when they can't see us and when it is too
cool for them to fly much?" asked Bill.
"No," said Barker, "we shall go in daylight, when we can see what we are
doing."
The sun was already several hours high, next morning, when the
bee-hunters were ready.
Under a clump of sumachs Barker prepared himself for the raid. He tied a
piece of mosquito netting over his hat and face. The sleeve of his
hunting-shirt he tied firmly to his wrists, and he put on his buckskin
hunting-gloves.
"Now, I'm ready," he laughed. "You can sit down and watch me."
With a saw, he had procured from the trader at Reed's Landing, he
rapidly made two cuts in the tree, one near the ground and the other
just below the knot-hole entrance.
The bees came pouring out of the knot-hole. Hundreds and thousands of
them buzzed madly about the trapper's head; they crawled all over him,
trying to find a spot where they could sting the robber of their
treasure-house.
Some of the angry bees discovered the two spectators and Meetcha. Bill
let out a yell and ran. Tatanka tried to fight them off, but some got
into his hair. He gave a ringing Sioux warwhoop and tumbled after Bill
in a most ludicrous manner. Little gray Meetcha had been watching the
fun as if puzzled at the strange behavior of his master. But now a mad
bee buzzed right into the hairs of his ear. Meetcha seemed to listen a
second, then he began to paw his ears frantically and to roll in the
grass. Now he sat up again, as if to listen. Some more bees were after
him. Again he pawed his ears wildly, and rolled on the grass as if he
were performing in a circus. Then he scampered hurriedly after Bill and
Tatanka.
When Barker had finished his cross-cuts with the saw, he began to use
his sharp ax vigorously and with the aid of an iron wedge, such as
wood-cutters use, he split a large slab out of the hollow tree.
There was the wild bee hive, full of great irregular combs of honey,
white, yellow, and brown!
The hunter gave a yell. "Come on, boys," he shouted; "get your honey. We
could fill a wash-tub full. The biggest lot of wild honey I ever saw."
The bees had almost stopped swarming about the hunter and had settled in
black masses on the broken combs and were gorging themselves on the
dripping honey.
Bill and Tatanka would not come near the tree.
"I am not afraid to fight the Chippewas," remarked Tatanka, "but I do
not like the little black bees."
Barker filled a birch-bark bucket with honey and then put the slab again
in place on the tree.
"I left them enough for the winter," he told his friends. "It would not
be right to rob the little creatures of all, because it is so late in
the season now that they could not gather another supply for the
winter."
Little Tim enjoyed very much the story Bill told him of the bee hunt,
and he laughed heartily when his brother told how Meetcha had fought the
angry bees. However, although Tim was now well on the road to recovery,
it was quite evident that he could not go on the long journey to
Vicksburg before winter, and Barker and Tatanka made their preparations
to winter in the river bottom below Lake Pepin.
The trapper had bought a gill-net about fifty feet long and on the first
warm day after the bee hunt, he proposed a fishing trip to Beef Slough,
one of the sluggish side-channels of the Mississippi.
One who has never seen the Great River is apt to imagine that, like
smaller rivers, it has only one channel, but below the mouth of the St.
Croix, it generally flows in one main channel and one or more
side-channels. The steamboats naturally take the main channel, but
hunters, canoeists, and fishermen often find their best sport on the
side-channels, or sloughs, as they are often called..
Bill was in a flutter of excitement when he and Barker arrived at Beef
Slough, for he had never fished with a gill-net. The trapper first cut
two stout poles, to each of which he tied one end of the net. He next
set the net across the slough so that it reached almost from side to
side.
A gill-net really consists of three nets. The net in the middle has
small meshes and is made of rather fine twine, the two nets on the
outside have very large meshes, a foot or more square. When a fish runs
against the middle net, the fine meshes catch him behind the gills and
hold him, or, if he is very big and strong, he makes a pocket of the
small net in trying to push through it and thus gets tangled up and
caught.
After Barker had set the net, he told his boy companion: "Now, Bill,
we'll make a big drive."
Bill did not know what Barker meant by making a drive for fish. He had
heard of the Indians driving buffalo, but he did not get much time to
think about the new kind of drive.
"Take that long pole and get into the boat with me," the trapper told
him, as he paddled up the slough a little way.
"Now," he ordered, as he turned around and started back toward the net,
"beat the water with that pole and make as much noise as you can."
Very soon the two men could see streaks in the smooth water. "Oh, I
see," exclaimed Bill, as he splashed the water to right and left, "we're
trying to drive them into the net. There, we've got one! See the float
go down. There's another one. Watch the big one! He isn't going in. Look
at him. See him run along the net. Look at him! He's run around the net
and is going down the river like a streak!"
"He is a big old buffalo-sucker," the trapper laughed. "He is too wise
to be caught in a gill-net."
"Say, Mr. Barker," the boy asked, "can fish think?"
"I reckon some of the old ones can," Barker answered. "Well never catch
that big fellow. I think he weighs fifteen pounds, I reckon his nose has
touched a net before."
The net was literally filled with fish of many kinds, suckers, pickerel,
pike, bass, big sunfish, and fierce-looking gars.
"We don't want those alligators," the boy remarked, when the trapper
threw several of the gars into the boat. "They have a long snout and are
covered with horny plates just like alligators," the boy continued.
"They surely would be alligators if they had legs. I couldn't eat them."
"That's all right," Barker laughed. "You needn't. Most white men throw
them away, but I learned from the Indians how to fix them. You pour
boiling water on their plates and they come off in big pieces. Their
meat has a fine flavor and they don't have any sharp little bones like
pickerel and most of the suckers. I think you'll eat them after they are
smoked or fried."