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Colby’s body on Mill Creek Road.   Jean descended into a hollow and crossed the creek on a fallen log, working his way up the slope through a thick stand of trees. When he reached a low hummock of firm ground he followed along its ridge, almost running, scrambling through the brush, hurrying to meet Rob. The Honey Tree was only a little farther on.   Quite suddenly he saw the footprints again. The man had taken the same route Jean had chosen, but when in sight of the Honey Tree he had veered sharply away and leaped back across the tiny stream: Jean could see where his feet had landed after the jump, and where he had slipped in climbing the wet bank.   Looking through the trees from where the stranger had suddenly turned, Jean saw Rob sitting on a deadfall waiting for him.
    The tracks were very fresh; the stranger could be only minutes ahead of him.   Obviously, the man had seen Rob and turned quickly away. Why should a man be afraid of being seen by a boy?
    Jean walked into the clearing. “Hi,” he said.

2
    The Honey Tree stood at the edge of a small clearing, its long-dead limbs stripped and bare in the late afternoon sun. A gigantic cypress, lightning-blasted and hoary with years, it was all of nine feet through and hollow to at least sixty feet of its height. In that vast cavity generations of bees had been storing honey, and to Jean LaBarge it had been a source of excitement and anticipation since the first day of its discovery by him. Not a week passed that he did not attempt to devise a plan for robbing it.   Thousands of bees hummed about the tree, for not one but a dozen swarms used different levels of its hollow. Towering high above the clearing, it must once have been a splendid tree; now it was only a gigantic storehouse. When first Jean took Rob to the swamp, it was to the Honey Tree they had gone, and ever since it had been the focal point of their wanderings and explorations within the swamp.
    Shortly after he arrived at the farm, Jean’s Uncle George was shown the tree, and immediately plans were made to smoke out the bees and steal their honey. But that was before Uncle George realized that there was no way in which smoke could be made to affect all the bees simultaneously. Long before the smoke reached the bees near the top the wind would dissipate it, and to attempt the robbery would be to die under the stings of thousands of bees. Uncle George grumbled, threatened the bees and went away. He did not return to the Honey Tree and Jean did not mention his tree again, yet the thought of all that stored-up sweetness fascinated the boys.
    “You going to smoke them today?” Rob was eager. “I’ll bet there’s bushels of honey!”
    “Bushels?” Jean was scornful of such an estimate. “There’s tons!” He stared up at the tree, awed by the thought. Then he hitched up his too-large pants, remembering suddenly what he had meant to ask. “Did you see him?” “See who?”
    “The man ... there was a man came this way, just ahead of me. When he saw you he turned off into the swamp.”
    “Who was it?”
    “I’ll bet he’s gone to the stone house.” It was strange he had not thought of it before. The trail the man was making would lead that way, and this might be the man who had left those ashes there. “I don’t know who it was,” he added.   Rob’s eyes were big with excitement. Strangers were few along the Susquehanna in those years and most of them either passed by or occasionally stopped at the tavern for a meal or a drink. There was nothing to keep anyone in the village.   And for anyone to leave the safety of Mill Creek Road for the dangers of the swamp was unheard of.
    “Maybe he’s one of the Carters.”
    Jean’s heart began to pound heavily. The thought had not occurred to him before.   The Carters were a band of outlaws known for their robberies, murders and brutality in all the regions near the Susquehanna in the early 1800’s. The name was given them because the first of