In Secret

"You never found out who that Englishman was, did you?

"No."

"Did our agents search Les Errues?"

"I suppose so. But I have never heard anything further about that affair," he shrugged; "and I don't believe we ever will until after the war, and until—"

"Until Switzerland belongs to us," said an airman with a light laugh.

Others, listening, looked at one another significantly, smiling the patient, confident and brooding smile of the Hun.

Knaus unwittingly wrote his character and his epitaph:

"Ich kann warten."

The forest of Les Errues was deathly still. Hunters and hunted both were as silent as the wild things that belonged there in those dim woods—as cautious, as stealthy.

A dim greenish twilight veiled their movements, the damp carpet of moss dulled sounds.

Yet the hunted knew that they were hunted, realised that pursuit and search were inevitable; and the hunters, no doubt, guessed that their quarry was alert.

Now on the tenth day since their entrance into Les Errues those two Americans who were being hunted came to a little wooded valley through which a swift stream dashed amid rock and fern, flinging spray over every green leaf that bordered it, filling its clear pools with necklaces of floating bubbles.

McKay slipped his pack from his shoulders and set it against a tree. One of the two carrier pigeons in their cage woke up and ruffled. Looking closely at the other he discovered it was dead. His heart sank, but he laid the stiff, dead bird behind a tree and said nothing to his companion.

Evelyn Erith now let go of her own pack and, flinging herself on the moss, set her lips to the surface of a brimming pool.

"Careful of this Alpine water!" McKay warned her. But the girl satisfied her thirst before she rose to her knees and looked around at him.

"Are you tired, Yellow-hair?" he asked.

"Yes…. Are you, Kay?"

He shook his head and cast a glance around him.

It was beautiful, this little woodland vale with its stream dashing through and its slopes forested with beech and birch—splendid great trees with foliage golden green in the sun.

But it was not the beauty of the scene that preoccupied these two. Always, when ready to halt, their choice of any resting-place depended upon several things more important than beauty.

For one matter the place must afford concealment, and also a water supply. Moreover it must be situated so as to be capable of defence. Also there must be an egress offering a secure line of retreat.

So McKay began to roam about the place, prowling along the slopes and following the stream. Apparently the topography satisfied him; for after a little while he came back to where Miss Erith was lying on the moss, one arm resting across her eyes.

"You ARE tired," he said.

She removed her arm and looked up at him out of those wonderful golden eyes.

"Is it all right for us to remain here, Kay?"

"Yes. You can see for yourself. Anybody coming into this valley must be visible on that ridge to the south. And there's an exit. This brook dashes through it—two vast granite gates that will let us through into the outer forest, where they might as well hunt for two pins as for us."

The girl smiled; her eyes closed. "I'm glad we can rest," she murmured. So McKay went about his duties.

First he removed his pack and hers a hundred yards down stream, through the granite gateway, and placed them just beyond.

Then he came back for Miss Erith. Scarcely awakened as he lifted her, she placed one arm around his neck with the sleepy unconsciousness of a tired child. They had long been on such terms; there was no escaping them in the intimacy of their common isolation and common danger.

He laid her on the moss, well screened by the granite barrier, and beyond range of the brook's rainbow spray. She was already asleep again.

He took off both her shoes, unwound the spiral puttees and gave her bruised little feet a chance to breathe.

He made camp, tested the wind and found it safe to build a fire, set water to simmer, and unpacked the tinned rations. Then he made the two beds side by side, laying down blankets and smoothing away the twigs underneath.

The surviving carrier pigeon was hungry. He fed it, lifted it still banded from its place, cleaned the cage and set it to dry in a patch of sunshine.

The four automatic pistols he loaded and laid on a shelf in the granite barricade; set ammunition and flashlight beside them.

Then he went to his pack and got his papers and material, and unrolled the map upon which he had been at work since he and Evelyn Erith had entered the enemy's zone of operations.

From time to time as he worked, drawing or making notes, he glanced at the sleeping girl beside him.

Never but once had the word "love" been mentioned between these two.

For a long while, now—almost from the very beginning—he had known that he was in love with this girl; but, after that one day in the garden, he also knew that there was scarcely the remotest chance that he should live to tell her so again, or that she could survive to hear him.

For when they had entered the enemy's zone below Mount Terrible they both realised that there was almost no chance of their returning.

He had lighted his pipe; and now he sat working away at his drawings, making a map of his route as best he could without instruments, and noting with rapid pencil all matters of interest for those upon whose orders he and this girl beside him had penetrated the forbidden forest of Les Errues. This for the slim chance of getting back alive. But he had long believed that, if his pigeons failed him at the crisis, no report would ever be delivered to those who sent him here, either concerning his discoveries or his fate and the fate of the girl who lay asleep beside him.

An hour later she awoke. He was still bent over his map, and she presently extended one arm and let her hand rest on his knee.

"Do you feel better, Yellow-hair?"

"Yes. Thank you for removing my shoes."

"I suppose you are hungry," he remarked.

"Yes. Are you?"

He smiled: "As usual. I wish to heaven I could run across a roebuck." They both craved something to satisfy the hunger made keen by the Alpine air, and which no concentrated rations could satisfy. McKay seldom ventured to kill any game—merely an auerhahn, a hare or two, a red squirrel—and sometimes he had caught trout in the mountain brooks with his bare hands—the method called "tickling" and only too familiar to Old-World poachers.

"Roebuck," she repeated trying not to speak wistfully.

He nodded: "One crossed the stream below. I saw the tracks in the moss, which was still stirring where the foot had pressed."

"Dare you risk a shot in Les Errues, Kay?"

"I don't think I'd hesitate."