Who Goes There!

"Oh hell!" said Darrel; "go on and talk, Michaud!"

"Are you going to poke your nose into this?" demanded Guild.

"It's in now."

"See here, Harry! Your sticking by me is gratuitously silly and it annoys me. You don't have to. This isn't any of your business, this mess."

Darrel lighted a cigarette and sat down on the terrace steps. Guild glared at him.

"Will you go to the devil!" he snapped out.

"No, I won't."

Michaud, perplexed, had remained silent.

"If things go wrong they'll make a clean sweep of us all, I tell you," said Guild. "Once more, Harry, will you mind your own business?"

"No," said Darrel, blandly.

Guild turned to Michaud: "What were you saying?"

The forester, controlling his anger and emotion, continued the story of the sniper near Trois Fontaines. Then he outlined the miserable affair of the hill pasture.

"There remains for us now only two courses," he ended. "Either we turn franc-tireur and make our bivouac yonder in the forest, or we gather our people at The Pulpit, lie there tonight, and at daylight strike out for the Dutch frontier."

Guild nodded.

"There is a little hole in the rocks at The Pulpit – scarce large enough to be called a cave. Since the war came upon us, foreseeing necessity, my men have carried arms and provisions to The Pulpit – well hidden, Monsieur. I think, now, that it is a better refuge than this house."

The three men looked up at the house. Michaud made a hopeless gesture: "I suppose they will destroy it, now. God knows. But if Monsieur Paillard be truly dead as we now believe, and his poor body lies rotting under the ruins of Wiltz-la-Vallée, then there is nobody to mourn this house excepting the old forester, Michaud… And I think he has lived on earth too long."

He went slowly toward the house, entered it. One by one all the lighted windows grew dark. Presently he reappeared drawing the door-key from his pocket. Very deliberately he locked the door from the outside, looked in silence at the darkened house, and, facing it, quietly removed his hat.

The silent salute lasted but a moment; he put on his grey hat with the pheasant's feather sticking up behind, picked up his fowling-piece and hung it over one shoulder, his big, weather-browned hand resting on the sling.

"Eh bien, Messieurs?" he inquired calmly.

"Bring in your men, Michaud," said Guild. "I know where The Pulpit is, but I couldn't find it at night. I'll wait at the carrefour for you." And, to Darrel: "What did you do with my luggage?"

"Sent it to Quellenheim."

"That rücksack, too?"

"Yes."

"Damnation," said Guild very calmly; "it had papers in it which are enough to hang anybody!"

"You'd better go and get it, then."

"I'll have to, that's all."

They walked across the lawn and out along the dark drive in silence. Where the ride crossed at the carrefour they halted. There was a dilapidated shrine there to Our Lady of Lesse. They seated themselves on the stone base.

"Harry," said Guild, "how long do you intend to follow me about in this absurd way?"

"I'd like to see you safe across the Dutch frontier."

"Thanks," said Guild drily.

"Don't mention it. I really can reconcile myself to your having your bally head knocked off in uniform, but this sort of thing seems rather ghastly."

"It is. Won't you go on to Quellenheim to oblige me?"

"I'll wait till tomorrow morning," replied Darrel pleasantly.

Guild was silent. They sat there for an hour or more scarcely exchanging a word. Then somebody whistled, cautiously, very near them, and another carefully modulated whistle answered.

"Who goes there!" came a challenging voice.

"Yslemont!"

"Our men," said Guild, rising.

Michaud came up in the darkness. "The shepherd, Jean Pascal, and Schultz, and the men of Yslemont are out there yet. Nothing I say affects them. They say that they need another Uhlan to bleed. Imbeciles!"

"Won't they obey you?"

"No, by God! The two sheep dogs of Jean are there, grave and wise as two big-eared devils squatting. And the half-crazed lad is teaching them to track Uhlans – making them sniff the bloody schapskas like a hunter who trains pups with a dead hare!"

He looked around at the dozen shadowy figures gathering in the carrefour; the star-light sparkled on guns and belts and slings, and here and there on the vizor of a casquette-de-chasse.

"The Grey Wolves," said Michaud, "can never find us in The Pulpit. If Monsieur is ready?"

"Quite ready," said Guild. And the shadowy file, led by Michaud, moved straight into the woods.

CHAPTER XXII

DRIVEN GAME

The stars had faded; a watery grey light glimmered through the forest. Deer crossed the grassy carrefour by the shrine, picking a dainty way toward forest depths; rabbits hopped homeward through dew-drenched ferns and bracken; a cock-pheasant saluted the dawn; the last wild boar still lingered amid the beech mast, rooting, coughing, following the furrows that his bristly snout was making while his furry bat-like ears, cocked forward, remained on duty, and his tail wriggled pleasurably.

The silent watchers aloft behind the rocky escarpement of The Pulpit, looking down through leafy branches to the carrefour, saw the last little roedeer trot past on his fastidious way; saw the last rabbit vanish in the warren; saw the lone boar lift his huge and shaggy head to listen with piggish suspicion, then turn and go, silent as some monstrous spectre.

From under hazel bushes pheasants stepped out to ruffle and preen and peck pensively among the fallen leaves, awaiting the promise of the sun, their white collars gleamed below their gorgeous heads; the sombre splendour of their plumage made brilliant spots along the ride. Here and there a hen-pheasant crept modestly about the business of breakfast. A blue and rosy jay alighted near, sign that the forest peace promised to endure.

After a long while far in the west the grey was touched with rose. Darrel, lying beside Guild, chin on his folded arms, stirred slightly.

"Sunrise," he said.