As it was, the swarm extended so low that, as soon as the ax opened the first view into the hollow trunk, the bees began to appear, and the opening had to be stuffed with grass, and a bucket of water which Philip brought did not come amiss before the chopping was done. All this time Tumbler licked his jaws, and kept his beady eyes fixed on the top of the tree, like a good coon dog, and never stirred his stumps until, with the last blow of the ax, the old tree creaked, and swayed at the top, and fell with a great crash down the hill. The three soldiers ran off to a safe distance as soon as the tree began to fall, while Tumbler, after regarding their flight with a look of disgust, walked deliberately into the thick of the battle, and began to crunch the dripping comb as coolly as a pig eats corn. The brittle trunk of the old tree had split open as it fell, and for twenty feet of its length the mass of yellow honey lay exposed to the gaze of the men, while the infuriated bees darkened the air above it, and made a misty halo about the head of the happy bear. The happiness of Tumbler was not altogether uninterrupted, for the soldiers drove him off now and again with sticks and stones; but however far he retired from the tree, he was surrounded and defended by such an army of bees that it was quite out of the question to capture him. There was no end of the honey; but the worst of it was, the bear was eating the whitest and newest of the combs, and when at last his greedy appetite was satisfied, and he came of his own accord to the house, he brought such disagreeable company with him that the soldiers got out through the door and windows as best they could, leaving him in undisputed possession--very much as his lamented mother had held the fort on that night when her little cub, Tumbler, had slept in the ashes the year before. [Illustration: "THEY DROVE HIM OFF WITH STICKS AND STONES."] There was nothing else to be done but to walk about for the rest of the day; for until nightfall there was a line of bees from the house to the tree. The soldiers secured the bear by closing the door and windows, but it was not yet clear how they could obtain the honey. Coleman and Bromley were city-bred, but Philip had been brought up in the country, and he had received some other things from his uncle besides kicks and cuffs and a knowledge of how to run a mill. He remembered the row of hives under the cherry-trees beyond the race, and how the new swarms had come out, and been sawed off with the limbs in great bunches, or called out of the air by drumming on tin pans, and how at last they had been enticed into a hive sprinkled inside with sweetened water.