“There is the pteranodon!” And Colton laughed shakily as he pointed to the blood-smeared form lying quietly on the sand. “But those footprints! Those footprints! The fossil marks on the rocks!” “Footprints on the rock. Handprints here.” “Handprints?” repeated the professor. “Tell me slowly, I implore you. I must confess to an unaccustomed condition of bewilderment.” “No wonder. The juggler killed his men by knife-play. He lay hidden in the mouth of the gully, and threw the knife as they came along. After killing them he had to recover his knife. So he walked out upon his hands, leaving the marks which have puzzled us so.” “But why?” “He is coming to. We’ll ask him.” In a few minutes “The Wonderful Whalley” was able to sit up and answer questions. All his rage seemed to have gone, and all his cunning. He was cowed and weak and indifferent. “Why did you kill Serdholm?” asked Colton. “He beat me,” was the reply. “And what had you against Mr. Haynes?” “He sink I was murderer; zat I kill ze sailor.” “And against me?” “I see you follow ze trail. I sink you find me.” “So I probably should. I just had seen the resemblance between my handprint and yours and had jumped forward to examine the next print, when I was struck.” “Zat jomp safe you,” said the juggler. “Ze butt of ze knife hit as it turn or you would be dead.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact way. While waiting until he should be able to walk, they got a detailed confession from him. He told with perfect frankness of the killing of Serdholm and Haynes and the attack on Colton; but he flatly and rather nonchalantly denied the murder of Petersen the sailor, and the slaying of the sheep. Coming to the killing of the kite-flier, Colton set a trap for him. “Why did you club him after you had given him the knife?” “Who?” said the juggler, his eyes growing wide. “Mr. Ely, the man we found dead two nights ago with your knife-wound in his back.” Whalley displayed a pitiable agitation. “Ze tall, still man, ze man at ze fisher-house? He ees dead?” he cried. “You ought to know.” “I sink he was dead,” said the juggler simply. “I hear zat sound up in ze air.” Once more he threw his hands upward in that shuddering gesture which had startled them the night of the wreck. “Zen I hear him cry like a dead man. A great an’ terreeble cry! I run to my place an’ hide away.” “He heard the kites,” said Colton to Professor Ravenden. Then to the juggler: “Now, Whalley, what put it into your head to walk out on your hands after your knife when you killed Mr. Haynes and Serdholm?” “To make it like ze ozzer tracks,” he replied promptly. “What other tracks?” cried the two men in a breath. “Ze tracks of eet I do not know. I see zem; but I do not know. Come, I show you.” He got unsteadily to his feet, and, guarded on either side, led them down the beach toward the Sand Spit station. After walking about a third of a mile he stopped and cast about him.