EARS ago, banished into the far Rio 

 Grande region, I became a keeper of 

 bees. As a child I had loved them, 

 even caressed them, and many a time 

 have I held them one and a hundred at once in my 

 hands. I knew their every mind and their wilful 

 ways; I loved their sweet contrarieties, their happy 

 acceptation of the inevitable, and their joyous facing 

 of life. 



So it came about that, grown older, I returned to 

 my old engagements, and, far from human habitation, 

 amid the wild, brush-set wilderness enveloping Lake 

 Espantoso, I built my house and brought my bees. 

 And, too, there came with me a little Shadow, and 

 at his heels a shepherd-dog. There, in that land 

 of boundless spaces, we waited and watched and 

 dreamed. 



The years went by silently, uneventfully day fol- 

 lowing day noiselessly, as sounds die in the sea. Spring 

 came with its bounty of flowers; and fast on the trail 



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