Читать книгу Camping in the Winter Woods: Adventures of Two Boys in the Maine Woods онлайн

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Hardly had the great tree fallen before Bill was at the hole with a sulphur torch. The lads ran forward to see what he was doing, and were choked by the fumes he was blowing down into the trunk. They distinctly heard the loud, angry buzzing of thousands of imprisoned bees, and were thankful that the trapper stood guard with his torch. A few managed to escape him and forced the boys to dodge and run by buzzing angrily about their ears.

While Bill stood bravely by the entrance and sent the stifling fumes of his torch into the tree, Ben mounted the prostrate trunk. He began cutting out a wide strip directly above the place where he heard the fierce buzzing, now grown weaker and less threatening, thanks to the trapper and his torch.

The others laughed heartily when Bill got a whiff of his own medicine and doubled up gasping and coughing, his lungs full of sulphur fumes. Their joy was short-lived, however, for at that very instant George was stung on the back of the neck and the guide behind the ear. Bill declared it served them right for laughing at him.