"Aw, shut up!" cried Gizzard good naturedly. "And go on up that tree 'fore it gets so dark you can't see nuthin'!" Sube immediately began to climb the huge leaning willow that overhung the pool, protesting meanwhile that the hand was quicker than the eye. But after he had ascended a few feet he became singularly silent. Between the darkness and the foliage Gizzard lost sight of him completely, but he did not appear to be alarmed, for he lay down on his back and gazed up at the stars that were just beginning to become visible. It was some time before Sube re-appeared laboriously lowering himself to the ground. As soon as his feet touched the sod he snatched the ball of string from his teeth and spat vigorously. "Rottenes' string I ever tasted!" he sputtered. "Well," returned Gizzard, "if it's any worse'n chawin' a knot out of a porpoise-hide shoestring, I don't want any." "But I got it fixed all right," said Sube. Then Gizzard led the way into the shrubbery, followed by Sube, who carefully paid out the string as he went. An observer might have thought that the pair were intent upon outwitting a labyrinth; but assuredly such was not their purpose. For after retiring a few paces into the underbrush, Sube tied the string securely to a sapling, and detaching the ball with his knife, put it into his pocket; then, taking hold of hands in order to keep together they made a wide detour to avoid coming in contact with the string, and started for home. The next night was a memorable one in the annals of the Unionville swimming-hole. None of the bathers present that night could think of anything else for several hours afterwards; and the pangs of some of them lasted well into the next day, and even the day after that. The thing began just as Seth Bissett was poised on the bank for a dive. He heard a vicious hum, and at almost the same instant felt something strike him a stinging blow on the ear. Before he could so much as raise his hand to investigate, another pierced his shoulder. Then a broadside swept his entire body. The other members of the party were at a loss to account for his strange actions, other than by the hypothesis that he had been seized with sudden insanity; for, with an unearthly yell, he leaped into the air swinging his arms and legs like the wings of an ungainly windmill, and landed, after a short but successful flight, far out in the water. As he came to the surface he took up the yell where he had left off and again began the windmill motions to the accompaniment of incoherent profanity. Then he went down again. By this time his strange conduct was perfectly understood by his companions, for they had themselves been attacked by the same insidious foe. A swarm of yellow-jacket hornets, proverbially mad, had descended upon them without apparent provocation, and wholly without warning.