In Secret

"I got closte to 'em. There was enough moonlight to spot him by. I know the cut of him, don't I? That wuz him all right." He wiped his face on his sleeve. "Now what are we goin' to do?" he demanded brokenly. "Where do we get off, Harry?"

Skelton appeared dazed: "The slut," he kept repeating without particular emphasis, "the little slut! I thought she'd fallen for me. I thought she was my girl. And now to do that! And now to go for to do us in like that--"

"Well, we're all right, ain't we?" quavered Macniff. "We make our getaway all right, don't we? Don't we?"

"I can't understand--"

"Say, listen, Harry. To blazes with Helsa! She's hollered and that ends her. But can we make our getaway? And how about them Germans waitin' for us by that there crucifix on top of this mountain? Where do they get off? Does this guy, Recklow, get them?"

"He can't get six men alone."

"Well, can't he sic the Swiss onto 'em?"

A terrible doubt arose in Skelton's mind: "Recklow wouldn't come here alone. He's got his men in these woods! That damn woman fixed all this. It's a plant! She's framed us! What do I care about the Germans on the mountain! To hell with them. I'm going!"

"Where?"

"Into Alsace. Where do you think?"

"You gotta cross the mountain, then--or go back into France."

But neither man dared do that now. There was only one way out, and that lay over Mount Terrible--either directly past the black crucifix towering from its limestone cairn on the windy peak, or just below through a narrow belt of woods.

"It ain't so bad," muttered Macniff. "If the Germans up there catch McKay and the girl they'll kill 'em and clear out."

"Yes, but they don't know that the Americans have crossed the wire. The neck of woods is open!"

"McKay may go over the peak."

"McKay knows this mountain," grumbled Skelton. "He's a fox, too. You don't think he'd travel an open path, do you? And how can we catch him now? We were to have warned the Germans that the two had crossed the wire and then our only chance was to string out across that neck of woods between the peak and the cliffs. That's the way McKay will travel, not on a path in full moonlight. Aw--I'm sick--what with Helsa doing that to me--I can't get over it!"

Macniff started nervously and began to run along the path, upward: "Beat it, Harry," he called back over his shoulder; "it's the only way out o' this now."