“Excuse me, Lieutenant!” exclaimed the sentry who had caught the professor. “But would you mind giving me another post? He found all them animals he speaks of right here where I’m patrollin’.” And the soldier looked more frightened than if he had been told to charge on a battery of machine guns. “I mean you saw no unauthorized persons trying to get through the lines, did you?” asked the lieutenant of the professor. “The insects were all you found?” “Yes, but I haven’t found enough,” answered the scientist. “I should like more time. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to hunt for specimens, and I was most successful.” “I’m afraid we shall have to ask you to postpone your operations until morning,” said the officer with a smile. “We want you to feel free to advance the cause of science as much as you can, but a war camp at night is a nervous sort of place, and the least alarm disturbs a large number of men.” “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Snodgrass. “I can, of course, wait until it is light. There may be more scorpions and centipedes out then.” “I’m glad I go off duty,” murmured the sentry. Official explanations were then made. As he had said, Professor Snodgrass had been unable to sleep, and had arisen, without awakening the boys or any of their comrades, and had gone outside the barracks with his electric flash light and his collection boxes. He had seen the centipede wiggling along in the sand, and had caught it, his yells of delight, announcing the fact, giving the alarm, and causing the sentries to think a corporal’s guard of German spies had descended on them. Two of them made a rush for the professor, much to his surprise. For when he was getting specimens he was oblivious to his surroundings, thinking only of what he was after. The camp finally settled back to quietness again, and the professor went with the boys back to the barracks, but it was some time before any of them got to sleep again. The next day Professor Snodgrass found a number of what he said were very rare and valuable bugs from a collector’s standpoint, but which, to the boys and their chums, seemed to be utterly worthless and great pests, for most of them bit or stung. “Ah, but you don’t understand!” the scientist would say, when objections were made to his viewpoint. “Well, as long as you catch bugs by daylight, and don’t wake us up in the middle of the night, we’ll forgive you,” said Ned. “Especially after disappointing us so,” added Jerry. “Disappoint?” queried the professor. “Why, I couldn’t have asked for a better specimen of centipede than the one I captured.” They had a day’s furlough coming to them, and they decided to use it, when it was granted, in making a search for the crooked-nosed man. At the same time they could enjoy an outing with the professor, and watch him catch “bugs,” as the boys called all his specimens, whether they were horned toads or minute insects that needed a microscope to distinguish them from the leaves on which they fed.