"Tell them we descend by the Via Mala," added the nasal voice.
The flags swung sharply into motion for a few moments more; then the Prussian officer pocketed his notebook; the signaller furled his flags; and, as they turned and strode westward along the border of the forest, the girl rose to her knees on her bed of leaves and peered after them.
What to do she scarcely knew. Her comrade, McKay, had been gone since dawn in quest of something to keep their souls and bodies en liaison--mountain hare, a squirrel perhaps, perhaps a songbird or two, or a pocketful of coral mushrooms--anything to keep them alive on that heart-breaking trail of duty at the end of which sat old man Death awaiting them, wearing a spiked helmet.
And what to do in this emergency, and in the absence of McKay, perplexed and frightened her; for her comrade's strict injunction was to remain hidden until his return; and yet one of these men now moving westward there along the forest's sunny edges had spoken of a way out and had called it the Via Mala. And that is what McKay had been looking for--a way out of the Forbidden Forest of Les Errues to the table-land below, where, through a cleft still more profound, rushed the black Staubbach under an endless mist of icy spray.
She must make up her mind quickly; the two men were drawing away from her--almost out of sight now.
On her ragged knees among the leaves she groped for his coat where he had flung it, for the weather had turned oppressive in the forest of Les Errues-and fumbling, she found his notebook and pencil, and tore out a leaf: "Kay dear, two Prussians in Swiss mountain dress have been signalling across the knees of Thusis that our bodies have not been discovered in the ravine. They have started for the ravine by a way evidently known to them and which they speak of as the Via Mala. You told me to stay here, but I dare not let this last chance go to discover what we have been looking for--a path to the plateau below. I take my pistol and your trench-knife and I will try to leave signs for you to follow. They have started west along the cliffs and they are now nearly out of sight, so I must hurry. Yellow-hair."
This bit of paper she left on her bed of leaves and pinned it to the ground with a twig. Then she rose painfully, drew in her belt and laced her tattered shoes, and, taking the trench-knife and pistol, limped out among the trees.