He must move his fingers to the right—this way. Again he 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.