"Afraid of you," said Grace, her eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "Little
shrimp--who are you?" There followed a characteristic scene that somewhat
lifted the oppression they had all been feeling, and it was not till they
had nearly reached the river at the head of the falls that they became
serious again.

"It was right about here," said Betty soberly, "that we saw him the night
that he started to jump into the river--or I suppose it was the same one,"
she added.

"Let us hope so," said Mollie fervently. "I wouldn't like to think that
there were two lunatics wandering round these woods. One is quite enough."

As they came closer to the river they became more and more conscious that
they were not alone, that some one, hidden in the bushes, was craftily
watching them.

So strong did this feeling finally become that once the boys separated,
thrashing the bushes in all directions. They did not find anything, and
finally continued along the path, a little ashamed of what they thought
was an attack of nerves.

"Phew, this is getting a little hot for me," said Frank, running his hand
through his shock of fair hair. "I don't mind fighting anything in the
open--" He left the sentence unfinished, for at that moment they broke
through the bushes at the river's edge upon a sight that struck them
speechless.

Not twenty yards down the bank stood a ragged scarecrow of a man, so
unkempt, so wild, so abandoned in its crouching attitude as to appear