ght, through the leak," said the chief aerostatic officer, who
considered that many of his gallant subordinates had lost their lives
through Bouchard's inefficiency. "Perhaps Clarissa Eileen has already
telepathically wigwagged it to him."

To lose your temper at a staff council is most unbecoming. Turcas would
have kept his if hit in the back by a fool automobilist. Westerling had
now recovered his. He was again the superman in command.

"It is for you and not for us to locate the leak; yes, for you!" he
said. "That is all on the subject for the present," he added in a tone
of mixed pity and contempt, which left Bouchard freed from the stare of
his colleagues and in the miserable company of his humiliation.

All on the subject for the present! When it was taken up again his
successor would be in charge. He, the indefatigable, the over-intense,
with his mediaeval partisan fervor, who loathed in secret machines like
Turcas, was the first man of the staff to go for incompetency.

"And Engadir is the key-point," Westerling was saying.

"Yes," agreed Turcas.

"So we concentrate to break through there," Westerling continued, "while
we engage the whole line fiercely enough to make the enemy uncertain
where the crucial attack is to be made."

"But, general, if there is any place that is naturally strong, that--"
Turcas began.

"The one place where they are confident that we won't attack!"
Westerling interrupted. He resented the staff's professional respect for
Turcas. After a silence and a survey of the faces around, he added with
sententious effect: "And I was right about Bordir!"

To this argument there could be no answer. The one stroke of generalship
by the Grays, who, otherwise, had succeeded alone through repeated mass
attacks, had been Westerling's hypothesis that had gained Bordir in a
single assault.

"Engadir it is, then!" said Turcas with the loyalty of the subordinate
who makes a superior's conviction his own, the better to carry it out.

Hazily, Bouchard had heard the talk, while he was looking at Westerling
and seeing him, not at the head of the council table, but in the arbor
in eager appeal to Marta.

"I shall find out! I shall find out!" was drumming in his temples when
the council rose; and, without a word or a backward glance, he was the
first to leave the room.

XXXVIII

HUNTING GHOSTS

In his search for the medium of the leak to the enemy Bouchard had
studied every detail of the