“Suppose we take a turn in the woods,” he suddenly suggested, wheeling
about and heading for the door. “I have new bearings to get and you have
new lands to explore.”
“I supposed you knew this country,” I ventured.
“I do, but the way to this new home of mine must be learned.”
Out into the air we hurried, but he flew back and forth many times before
our door. He wanted to make sure that he knew it; then, flying round and
round in ever wider circles, we mounted with ecstasy into the higher
reaches. Lake Espantoso, with its border of great oaks, lay below us like
a bar of silver; and the Master’s house stood like a sentinel beside the
white hives which, row on row, spread beneath us in the sun.
“That prominent knoll,” said Crip, “is a thing to remember, if you are
returning late and flying low. And remember, too, that in that window of
the Master’s house a lantern burns. This may sometimes be a guide. But,
mark you, never fly into it, though you may be tempted. Better still,
get in before it is too dark. Just there by that row of hives is a tree
to remember. It is a glory in the spring with its yellow flowers, until
the cutting ants get it. They clip off the leaves and blossoms. But it
is an excellent land-mark, nevertheless. And there’s the Master,” went
on Crip, “and the Little One, and that horrid dog. That little boy sits
by for hours while the great one labors with some of us. The horrid dog
sleeps—I’d like to sting him. Things will go wrong—the Master sets them
to rights. He seems to know everything; and yet, when he took away some
of our honey, in spite of our having vast stores of it, we fought him.
The little he took harmed us not at all, and I suppose we fight him
because our brothers have done so for centuries. But I talk too much.”
After a rather long flight, and much interesting converse, we reached our
door again. Crip’s experience with the guard was still fresh in his mind,
for he clung closely to me for protection. But the guard this time passed
him without a word. He had acquired the scent and the note of the hive,
and henceforth his life and all the energies of his body would be merged
with that of the colony.
[Illustration: CHAPTER SEVEN