In Secret

"That is the situation we are confronting," admitted McKay calmly.

She said with perfect simplicity: "Of course we must go into Les Errues."

"Of course, comrade. How?"

He had no plan--could have none. She knew it. Her question was merely meant to convey to him a subtle confirmation of her loyalty and courage. She scarcely expected to escape a dreadful fate on this quest--did not quite see how either of them could really hope to come out alive. But that they could discover the Great Secret of the Hun, and convey to the world by means of their pigeons some details of the discovery, she felt reasonably certain. She had much faith in the arrangements they had made to do this.

"One thing worries me a lot," remarked McKay pleasantly.

"Food supply?"

He nodded.

She said: "Now that the Boche have left Mount Terrible--except that wretched creature whose bones lie on the shelf below--we might venture to kill whatever game we can find."

"I'm going to," he said. "The Swiss troops have cleared out. I've got to risk it. Of course, down there in Les Errues, some Hun guarding some secret chamois trail into the forbidden wilderness may hear our shots."

"We shall have to take that chance," she remarked.

He said in the low, quiet voice which always thrilled her a little: "You poor child--you are hungry."

"So are you, Kay."

"Hungry? These rations act like cocktails: I could barbecue a roebuck and finish him with you at one sitting!"

"Monsieur et Madame Gargantua," she mocked him with her enchanting laughter. Then, wistful: "Kay, did you see that very fat and saucy auerhahn which the Swiss soldiers scared out of the pines down there?"

"I did," said McKay. "My mouth watered."

"He was quite as big as a wild turkey," sighed the girl.

"They're devils to get," said McKay, "and with only a pistol--well, anyway we'll try to-night. Did you mark that bird?"

"Mark him?"

"Yes; mark him down?"

She shook her pretty head.

"Well, I did," grinned McKay. "It's habit with a man who shoots. Besides, seeing him was like a bit of Scotland--their auerhahn is kin to the black-cock and capercailzie. So I marked him to the skirt of Thusis, yonder--in line with that needle across the gulf and, through it, to that bunch of pinkish-stemmed pines--there where the brook falls into silver dust above that gorge. He'll lie there. Just before daybreak he'll mount to the top of one of those pines. We'll hear his yelping. That's our only chance at him."

"Could you ever hit him in the dark of dawn, Kay?"

"With a pistol? And him atop a pine? No, not under ordinary conditions. But I'm hungry, dear Yellow-hair, and that is not all: you are hungry--" He looked at her so intently that the colour tinted her face and the faint little thrill again possessed her.