The ingenious answer was the laying down of a chemical scent in the moth’s second ear by the first mite intruder. This chemical successfully kept other mites out. In this way, the host moth could fly to live another day, and the mite could survive with it.

The relevance to Yarkie of the myriad examples like this in the natural realm was that a scientist found it hard to label a development “unnatural” or even “abnormal,” except in the strictest statistical sense. Nature made its own rules. From one point of view, Peter Hubbard could argue, there was no such thing as a “freak,” except by man’s definitions; everything that happened had to be deemed natural just because it had simply happened.

It was only when man interfered that terms like “artificial” should properly be used, Hubbard observed to himself. One question confronting him on Yarkie was precisely this: whether what was happening was “natural” or induced. Upon the answer might depend his course of action.

Hubbard realized that his thoughts had preoccupied him while the people were impatient for him to continue.

He questioned the waiting group, “Do you have any special trouble with ants here?” It was a wild shot. No ants he had ever heard of could move a dog, even though some species had the capacity to transport many times their own weight.

The men looked at each other puzzled, and shook their heads. They could see that Peter Hubbard was as unsure as they were, and it increased their distress.

Amos Tarbell spoke his own concern to Hubbard, “You said before it wasn’t roaches that got Sharky, and not rats that cut his ear off. If it isn’t roaches and it isn’t rats, what the hell is out there, and what the hell has cleaned off all the dead ones?”

Hubbard shook his head. “At this point, I don’t know what we’re dealing with any more than I know why all of you found everything so quiet in the woods and at the dump.”

To the group, Elizabeth voiced her own new puzzlement. “First I was afraid you might be attacked, now I’m scared that you weren’t. I mean, with nothing at all out there now, it’s certainly mysterious, isn’t it?”

“To put it mildly,” Peter Hubbard said to her wryly.

Elias Johnson said, “Well, I’m grateful for small favors. Hildie Cannon has been wandering around looking for her daughters, and if those rats had been rampaging, she’d be a goner.”

Bonnie asked with genuine concern, “Has she found the girls, Elias?”

The captain’s head turned negatively. “I told her they likely sailed over to Chatham to visit their aunt. They do that sometimes. Must have left her a note she missed. Hildie was going to phone her sister as soon as she got back home.”

“Which reminds me,” Peter Hubbard interjected, “can we get a phone out here?”