Again and again he tightened them, and now Dexter not only looked every inch a horse but very painfully to his rider felt like one, for the spurs were goring him to a most seditious behavior.

The mere pace was slackened only that he might alarmingly kick and shake himself in a manner as terrifying to the rider as it was unseemly in one of Dexter's years.
But the thing was inevitable, because once in his remote, hot youth Dexter, cavorting innocently in an orchard, had kicked over a hive of busy bees which had been attending strictly to their own affairs until that moment.

After that they had attended to Dexter with a thoroughness that had seared itself to this day across his memory.

He now sincerely believed that he had overturned another hive of bees, and that not but by the most strenuous exertion could he escape from their harrying.

They were stinging him venomously along his sides, biting deeper with every jump.