After that he had been up before dawn and out all day, net and bag in hand. He tramped great distances through woods and river mud. He talked with the slaves, who, his host was certain, thought the little man was crazy. Freeland thought it well to warn him about lonely, unused lanes and river lowlands. “Time was,” he added, “when I’d never think of cautioning a visitor at Freelands. Crime used to be unknown in these parts. But now there are many bad blacks about. It’s dangerous!” The little man was not listening. He was measuring the wing spread of a moth. Freeland became more insistent. “Just a few weeks ago,” he said, “a poor farmer named Covey was found in his own back yard with his head crushed in. Most of the slaves were caught before they got away, but the authorities are still looking for his housekeeper, whom they really suspect of the crime. It’s horrible!” The scientist was frowning, a puzzled expression on his round face. “But why--Why should they think his housekeeper did this awful thing?” William Freeland shrugged his shoulders. “It seems a dealer in the village told how this woman carried on like mad when Covey sold some girl off the place. I don’t know the details. But the man says he heard the woman say she’d kill her master.” “Tck! Tck!” The little man shook his head. “So you see, Doctor,” continued his host, judiciously, “that woman is at large and _you’d_ never be able to cope with her.” “Why, is she in the neighborhood?” Now Dr. Ross seemed interested. “It would be very hard for her to get through the cordon they’ve laid around that neck of land. In your long tramps you might easily wander into the section without knowing it. So I wouldn’t get too far off the place if I were you.” The little man nodded his head. Next evening, however, he did not return to the house until long after dark. He was bespattered with mud. He said he had stumbled and lost his specimens for the day. The mesh bag hung limp at his side. But no harm had befallen him. There he was, looking like one of his own bugs, under the hedge. William Freeland swung off his horse and went into the house. “Tell the Doctor breakfast is ready,” he said to Henry, who came forward. “Dat dirty old man!” grumbled Henry, as he shuffled away on his errand. The master had to laugh. No yellow canary sang in the alcove, but breakfast hour in the high-ceiled, paneled room passed very pleasantly. In the rare intervals when Dr. Ross was not squinting through his microscope or chasing through the woods, he was an interesting talker. This morning he compared the plant and insect life of this section of the Eastern Shore to a little strip of land in southern France on the Mediterranean. “Nature has scattered her bounties lavishly here in the South,” he said. And because it was a happy subject William Freeland began to tell the scientist about cotton.