Jonathan scrutinized the farms dotting the slopes. "See that bunch of red barns with a white house?" he said "That's Bill Morehead's. He keeps bees. Bet we've got bees from his hive and they'll lead us plumb into his back yard." It did begin to seem probable, and we took up our box in some depression of spirits. Two more stops, the bees still perversely flying westward, and we emerged in pastures. "Here's our last stop," said Jonathan. "If they don't go back into that edge we've just left, they're Morehead's. There isn't another bit of woods big enough to hold a bee tree for seven miles to the west of us." There was no rock to set the box on, so we lay down on the turf; Jonathan set the box on his chest, and partly slid the cover. He had by this time learned the trick of making the bees, even the excited ones, come out singly. We watched each one as she escaped, circle above us, circle, circle against the clear blue of the afternoon sky, then dart off--alas!--westward. As the last one flew we sat up, disconsolately, and gazed across the pasture. "Tame bees!" muttered Jonathan, in a tone of grief and disgust. "Tame bees, down there in my old woodlots. It's trespass!" "You might claim some of Morehead's honey," I suggested, "since you've been feeding his bees. But, then," I reflected, "it wouldn't be wild honey, and what I wanted was wild honey." We rose dejectedly, and Jonathan picked up the box. "Aren't you going to leave it for the bees?" I asked. "They'll be so disappointed when they come back." "They aren't the only ones to be disappointed," he remarked grimly. "Here, we'll have mushrooms for supper, anyway." And he stooped to collect a big puff-ball. We walked home, our spirits gradually rising. After all, it is hard to stay depressed under a blue fall sky, with a crisp wind blowing in your face and the sense of completeness that comes of a long day out of doors. And as we climbed the last long hill to the home farm we could not help feeling cheerful. "Bee-hunting is fun," I said, "even if they are tame bees." "It's the best excuse for being a loafer that I've found yet," said Jonathan; "I wonder the tramps don't all go into the business." "And some day," I pursued hopefully, "we'll go again and find really wild bees and really wild honey." "It would taste just the same, you know," jeered Jonathan. And I was so content with life that I let him have the last word. XIII A Dawn Experiment I have tried dawn fishing, and found it wanting. I have tried dawn hunting in the woods, after "partridges," and found it not all that Jonathan, in his buoyant enthusiasm, appears to think it. And so, when he grew eloquent regarding the delights of dawn hunting on the marshes, I was not easily fired. I even referred, though very considerately, to some of our previous experiences in affairs of this nature, and confessed a certain reluctance to experiment further along these lines.