They sat and smoked and ate relishingly the sandwiches made of thick bread and butter and ham and eggs. Freeman assented to the proposition that grub certainly tasted good out here. No one would have known Freeman. In the contagion of Cousin Jim’s extreme youth he had become quite a boy about it all. He followed up Cousin Jim’s remark about the marsh being pretty by discovering all sorts of compositions in the landscape. He pointed them out. This was a new one on Cousin Jim. Freeman became absorbed in making him see the various little pictures that could be composed by isolating certain bits from the whole. The isolating had to be done with an eye for the distribution of masses. Cousin Jim was vastly interested and could not get over his astonishment. “I’ve been coming down to this marsh off and on for near twenty-five years,” said he, “and I’ve always thought it was pretty--it is sort of wide and wild and lonesome--but I never thought it had so many little pictures in it!” “And colour,” supplemented Freeman. He somehow was as pleased as punch over having impressed Cousin Jim, whose opinion yesterday had been negligible. “What’s its colour?” “Why, brown.” “Turn your head upside down and look.” Cousin Jim gravely inverted. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he cried. “All kinds of colours, aren’t there? Lilac, and purple, and pearl, and pink--all sorts.” “It’s like magic,” said Cousin Jim. “How do you explain that?” “Oh, it’s just that when you look at it upside down you eliminate the form of things and see only the colour. Your attention is not divided.” “_Swish!_--_swish!_ A flock of swift teal had darted down and flashed away again. Cousin Jim laughed. “We better get on the job,” said he. They stayed out until the early dusk, returning only just in time to catch the local train back. In the smoking car Freeman was no longer silent. In fact, he talked a blue streak; and his conversation was of the shots he had made and why, and the shots he had not made and why not. Of course a fellow shooting a strange gun---- IV