"I must 'angle' for them chaps," repeated le Bourdon; "and if you
will go with me, strangers, you shall soon see the nicest part of
the business of bee-hunting. Many a man who can 'line' a bee, can do
nothing at an 'angle'."

As this was only gibberish to the listeners, no answer was made, but
all prepared to follow Ben, who was soon ready to change his ground.
The bee-hunter took his way across the open ground to a point fully
a hundred rods distant from his first position, where he found
another stump of a fallen tree, which he converted into a stand. The
same process was gone through with as before, and le Bourdon was
soon watching two bees that had plunged their heads down into the
cells of the comb. Nothing could exceed the gravity and attention of
the Indians, all this time. They had fully comprehended the business
of "lining" the insects toward their hives, but they could not
understand the virtue of the "angle." The first bore so strong an
affinity to their own pursuit of game, as to be very obvious to
their senses; but the last included a species of information to
which they were total strangers. Nor were they much the wiser after
le Bourdon had taken his "angle"; it requiring a sort of induction
to which they were not accustomed, in order to put the several parts
of his proceedings together, and to draw the inference. As for
Gershom, he affected to be familiar with all that was going on,
though he was just as ignorant as the Indians themselves. This
little bit of hypocrisy was the homage he paid to his white blood:
it being very unseemly, according to his view of the matter, for a
pale-face not to know more than a redskin.

The bees were some little time in filling themselves. At length one
of them came out of his cell, and was evidently getting ready for