e
stared--puzzled; they were moving farther and farther toward the
left--away from the bullets. Again the dry, cackling laugh. He would
fool his fingers. He would move them _away_ from the bullets.

He tried, and the next instant the groping fingers closed unerringly
upon the little cylinders. The laugh became an inarticulate babble of
satisfaction, his knees collapsed, and he pitched forward and lay still
with wide, staring eyes, while upon the corners of his mouth appeared
little flecks of white foam.

A shadow fell across his face--he was staring straight into the eyes of
the greener, who stood, dripping wet with the water of the river into
which he had fallen more than two months before.

The man leaped from the ground in a sudden frenzy of terror, and fled
screaming into the forest, crashing, wallowing, tearing through the
underbrush, he plunged, shrieking like a demon.

The greener stood alone in the clearing and listened to the diminishing
sounds.

At length they ceased and, in the silence, the greener turned toward
the sparkling river, and as he looked there came to his ear faint and
far, one last, thin scream.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE ROBE OF DIABLESSE

It required three days of hard labor to remove the fifty-two bird's-eye
maple logs to a position of safety. Jacques made a trip to the log
camp, returning with a stout rope and an armload of baling wire which
he collected from the vicinity of the stables.

The fact that bird's-eye maple logs, when green, will sink in water,
rendered necessary the use of two large pine logs as floats. These were
connected at the ends and in the middle with rope sufficiently long to
permit four of the heavier logs to rest upon the ropes between the
floats.

The raft thus formed was laboriously towed up-stream to the eddy where
the bird's-eye logs were wired together, weighted with stones, and
allowed to sink.

During the whole time Jeanne worked tirelessly by the side of the men,
and when the last log rested safely upon the bottom of the river, and
the scars were carefully removed from the bank, Bill surveyed the
result with satisfaction.

"I think that will keep Moncrossen guessing," he laughed. "He won't
know whether Creed ate the logs or an air-ship made away with them."

"But, he will know they are _somewhere_," said Jeanne gravely, "and he
will search for them far and wide."

"He will not find them," Jacques interrupted. "No man would search
up-stream fo