"By the middle of June the ends of the opposite beams were about
fifty feet apart.

"One hot morning, between ten and eleven, I was reaming out a
rivet-hole in the tip of the last beam. I was feeling out of sorts
that forenoon. Lancy had given his orders to me gruff and short,
though, as a matter of fact, he was probably just as gruff with
everybody else. But when you're looking for trouble, you know, you
don't have much trouble finding it.

"I straddled the beam, my feet almost touching under it. It was hot
in the unclouded sun, and the air was full of tropical scents.
Insects hummed round me. Bright-colored butterflies floated by. Now
and then a flock of shrieking birds swept up the gorge. On the
steel behind me a dozen men were busy.

"I had almost finished the hole, when my ears caught a humming,
gradually growing louder. I looked down. Several yards below hung a
black mass about as big as a nail-keg. It was a nest of wild bees
swarming.

"At first I felt curious, interested. Then I noticed that the bunch
was rising directly toward me, and I began to feel alarmed, as I
remembered their fearful stings. If they attacked me I should be in
a bad fix.

"Slowly, with a revolving motion and an intense, spiteful
_sszzzzz_-ing, the irregular mass kept rising. Its center
seemed so solid that I wondered how the wings had room to beat. Its