Or if they had ever been in Holland or Flanders they might have known of those novel toys, the handiwork of ingenious youngsters, that moan and wail and even pour forth their uncanny laughter when strategically placed on the tops of windmills. American soldier boys, chafing under enforced idleness in trenches and dugouts, would often beguile their time making these miniature calliopes to catch the wind. And it is not out of reason to surmise that many a warrior in the war-torn regions was startled and confounded by the aerial lamentations of these harmless little boxes of wires and crude whistles. A cigar box, a few strips of wire, and some odds and ends of willow wood suffice for the manufacture of the Flanders banshee. There is now an American banshee with all modern improvements (patent not applied for) invented and controlled by Pee-wee Harris. But that is not a part of the present story. CHAPTER XXIII AFTER THE STORM The expected difficulty of getting Blythe down from his strange refuge was much simplified by his own demeanor. When his agitation subsided he became as docile as a lamb, seeming quite willing to place himself in the scouts' hands. He seemed utterly exhausted and bewildered. With this exception he showed no trace of what he had been through, and appeared not to remember it. When they asked him to get up, he stared at Roy's flashlight for a moment as if puzzled, then rose saying not a word. In the glare of the light one of the scouts lifted a small locket that dangled on a cord around Blythe's neck, and several of the boys looked at it. Blythe either did not know what they did, or he did not care. At all events he did not object. This seemed odd to them considering how he had clutched the thing before. They saw that it was quite useless to question him about the matches and the wisps of straw or about why the sounds had meant anything to him. They wondered whether indeed that ghostly calling had aroused anything in his crippled memory or whether its significance was only in his disordered mind. They got him down the ladder and he accompanied them meekly to their little camp, hanging his head, and never speaking. Westy Martin, who clasped his arm, noticed that it still trembled, but otherwise he gave no sign of his hallucination and insane agitation. They pitied him, of course, but they could not repress a certain repugnance to him. Rational or not, a murderer is not a pleasant thing.... Their hearty liking for him, which had grown into a kind of affection, passed now to a feeling of pity. Before they reached the camp he made the one remark which broke his otherwise meek silence. On passing the shack on which they had last been working, he said, "That's where I found the robin, under that floor. Hollender thought I would kill it. He thinks I'm that kind." Then he laughed. Warde said nothing.