"Yes, young man, an' I'm 'bliged to ye. The rest of 'em will find their way to the queen, I guess. When these bees makes honey, if you'll come over I'll give you a hunk."

CHAPTER IX.

SHOOTING.

Lew Veazie was a sorry sight when he got up from the ground. The water had converted the soil into mud, which plastered him now from head to foot. And here and there on his face and hands were red spots made by the bee stings.

Gene Skelding was flailing at some bees that did not seem to have discovered that the queen was captured and their rightful domicile was the farmer's pail. There were other bees also at liberty, and one of them, angered no doubt by the turn of events, popped a stinger into the cuticle of Bink Stubbs.

"Scatt!" shrieked Bink. "Get away from here, or I'll murder you!"

Browning moved back, for a bee seemed to be making a desperate effort to single him out as a victim. Then he stuck his pipe into his mouth, quickly fished out some tobacco, and crammed the bowl full, and lighted it.

"Smoke 'em off!" he said. "That's a good way to fight bees."

"And tobacco smoke keeps away other female critters!" laughed Danny, trying rather vainly to imitate the peculiar quality in the farmer's speech. "That's the reason you have never been popular with the fair.

Now there is Veazie----"

"What about cigarettes?" drawled Browning, making a fog round his head.

"Don't let the kettle call the pot Blackie! The most disgusting thing ever created is a smoker of cigarettes!"

"Yah!" growled Danny, taking out a cigarette. "Lend me a match, old man."

And Browning lent him a match. Bink was rubbing earnestly at the stung spot.

"I'll never see honey again without thinking of this."

"Which honey do you mean?" asked Danny. "I heard you calling a chambermaid Honey the other evening. You must have thought her sweet!"

"And I heard one of them calling you a fool the other evening. She must have thought you an idiot."

"Thomebody get me a cab!" begged Veazie, rubbing his stings and ruefully regarding himself. "Thay, fellowth, thith ith awful! I'm a thight! Get a cab, thomebody, and take me home. I'm thick!"

"No cab here," said Skelding, who was also anxious to get away from the joking and guying crowd. "But I see a carriage over there. Yes, two of them."

"Get a cawiage--anything!" moaned Veazie. "Take me to the hothpital, take me to a laundwy, take me to a bath--anywhere, quick!"

The exodus of Veazie and his friends was followed by the return of Merriwell and his comrades to the traps. Hodge had not been long out of a sick-bed, and looked thin and weak. He walked with Merriwell. The other members of the flock had forgiven him for the rancorous and sulky spirit which had made him refuse to catch in the ball-game against Hartford, in which Buck Badger had pitched, but they had not forgotten it. They were courteous, but they were not cordial, and Hodge felt it.

Buck Badger came upon the ground, but without a gun. He was alone, too, and he kept away from Merriwell's crowd. He had not learned to like Merriwell's friends, any of them, and he detested Hodge.

Having taken his gun from its case, Merriwell put it together, and opened a box of loaded sh.e.l.ls, which he placed on the ground. The gun was a beautiful twelve-gage hammerless, of late design and American manufacture, bored for trap shooting. Hodge's gun was so nearly like it that they could scarcely be told apart.

Morton Agnew and Donald Pike came on the grounds before the shooting began. Merriwell observed that Badger affected not to notice them, but the Westerner was plainly annoyed.

"Perhaps you would like to shoot!" said Merriwell, going over to Badger with his gun. "I can let you have the use of my gun. Hodge has one just like it, and all our other fellows have good guns. So, if you'd like to shoot! It's all right, and as good as they make them."

The Kansan was plainly pleased.

"And I can let you have sh.e.l.ls."

"I'll take the gun, Merriwell," he said, balancing it in his hands and looking it over. "But I can't let you furnish sh.e.l.ls, when I can buy all I want right here on the grounds. And there is no reason why you can't shoot with it, too."

"None at all, old man, only I thought likely you wouldn't want to mix in with our crowd. I can shoot Bart's gun."

Badger flushed and his face darkened. He was on the point of saying something bitter against Hodge.

"I didn't intend to shoot when I came out," he said, choking down the angry utterance, "or I should have brought a gun. In fact, I didn't start for this place at all. But I'm here now, and I reckon my fingers would never get done itching if I couldn't get to pull a trigger. I used to shoot some on the ranch, you know, and I hope I haven't lost anything whatever of the knack. If I should beat your score now?"

"You're welcome to."

"Of course I'm more used to a revolver and rifle than to a shotgun, but I allow I know a kink or two about trap shooting, just the same."

The rattle and click of guns being put together, the snapping of locks, and the chatter, made pleasant music for gun lovers, as Frank returned to his friends.

"You didn't let him have your gun?" growled Hodge.

"Yes; I will shoot with yours."

"You're welcome to, of course; but I shouldn't have done it."

"Here goes to kill the first bird!" cried Danny, ambling out with a repeating shotgun in his hands.

"If you don't hit it first time, you can just sheep on kooting--I mean keep on shooting!" jollied Rattleton.

"I wish there was a bee round here to sting him!" sighed Bink, as Danny faced the trap. "I'm so sore from laughing that I know I can't hit anything."

"You couldn't hit anything, anyway!" said Bruce, putting some sh.e.l.ls into his gun.

"I can hit you!" Bink growled, lunging at him.

"I meant anything small!" said Bruce, brushing aside Bink's blow as if it had been a fly. "Shoo! Don't bother me, or I may get one of these sh.e.l.ls stuck."

A trap was sprung, and Danny blazed away.

"Missed!" said Dismal.

"And Danny is our crack shot!" moaned Bink. "The papers will say to-night that our shooting was like a lot of schoolgirls."

"How?" asked Merriwell.

"All misses! Yah! Watch me smash one of those blackbirds into dust."

Bink went forward with much seeming confidence--and missed, too.