knot of impatience and disgust. "Haven't I
been telling you that for half an hour? You are the dumbest ox
sometimes! Why, do you suppose I'd ask you to help me if I hadn't
expected to share with you? You must think I'm an awful tightwad!"

Margery bent her head humbly under this tirade. She had nothing more to
say, no defense to utter. By her unwomanly persistence she had very
clearly lost whatever admiration and respect Willie Jones might once
have felt for her. But--but--but she was in for half the profits! . . .
Women are so prone nowadays to prefer some petty material gain to the
grand old-fashioned whatchemaycallit.

"I think we're going to get our two full quarts," Margery remarked
amiably. Of course she was amiable. She had every reason to be amiable.

Willie Jones, who by this time had fallen silent, made no comment.

"Don't you think so?" Margery pursued sweetly.

"Huh!" grunted Willie Jones.

When the tin pail was about full an accident happened to Margery. She
stepped into something soft and clayey, and the next instant, seeing
what it was, she started off by leaps and bounds, crying out the shrill
warning: "Run, Willie, run! Bumble bees! I stepped on a bumble bee
nest!"

A young gravedigger--if it be correct to call the offspring of an old
gravedigger a young gravedigger--caught sight of the poachers just at
this moment, and, shouting out, "Hey, there! You!" started toward them
down the knoll. The incredible speed with which the poachers fled seemed
to give the young gravedigger an erroneous idea of the fear that his
presence inspired. There was small likelihood of his overtaking them
before they reached the safety of the other side of the fence, but they
seemed to him so little to realize this that, for the mere pleasure of
pursuit, the young gravedigger pounded on, brandishing his arms and
roaring his threats. By the time Margery and Willie made the fence they
had so far outdistanced the bees that Willie had courage to face about
and shout back defiance to all threats and to show his contempt for the
whole race of gravediggers by pointing his thumb to his nose and
wriggling his fingers in that same derisive and, it must be conceded,
effective manner already mentioned. Although still at a considerable
distance, the young gravedigger caught the full meaning of the insult
and almost exploded with rage.

"You--you little----" he began. But he did not finish. They saw him stop
suddenly, look up, and t