How deeply in the forest it might be I could not tell as yet, but soon would know in a degree. Across the field I carried the staff and stone and did just as I had already done, the bees, as before, coming in numbers to the feast. Again I watched, noting most carefully the direction of the flight of the group I had first chosen, and saw that now they flew not straight toward the west, but a very little to the north of it. Now I had become a menace to them! I knew that their home and place of storage was at the point where the two lines I had determined met, and it seemed, judging as best I might, that it could not be a great way in the far-extending wood. Around the swamp I went with all my gear. As I neared its western side I set my staff again and watched the flight once more, then, faring still farther until I had passed the western end some little distance, I did the same and found, to my delight, that the two flights appeared to come together at some point not more than some four or five hundred yards within the depths of the towering oak wood. There I but circled about, the bees coming to the honey now in hosts, and as soon as they were laden flying almost directly upward. Very keenly I searched upward now and found what I was seeking. Extending straight outward and upward from the trunk of the mightiest of the oaks was a giant blasted limb, and upon its side I could perceive a fissure in and out of which the bees were coming and going in countless numbers. Mine was the bee tree! I drew forth my short axe and cut the mark which all recognized as mine, three crosses, one above another--we had no letters or written language as yet, as had some eastern nations--deeply into the great tree’s hole, and so made sure my prize. Venturesome would be he who should cut down the tree thus marked by me. That toil should be my own when I so decided, a great toil doubtless, but one worth bearing, for the limb was huge and the bees a vast swarm, and within the lofty hollow must be stored honey to sweeten the bread of many a feast and supply the mead for many a score of brimming urus horns. Thus sought I the honey!