“Attention, you, over there in the Forest of Les Errues!  You had better wake up and listen!  Here is a Swiss officer come to speak with you.  Show yourselves or answer!”

There came no sound from within the illuminated edges of the woods.

But outside, upon the chasm’s sparkling edge, lay a dead man stark and transfigured and stiff as gold in the sun.

And already the first jewelled death-flies zig-zagged over him, lacing the early sunshine with ominous green lightning.

They who had killed this man might not be there behind the sunlit foliage of the forest’s edge; but the Swiss officer, after waiting a few moments, called again, loudly.  Then he called a third time more loudly still, because into his nostrils had stolen the faint taint of dry wood smoke.  And he stood there in silhouette against the rising sun listening, certain, at last, of the hidden presence of those he sought.

Now there came no sound, no stirring behind the forest’s sunny edge; but just inside it, in the lee of a huge rock, a young girl in ragged boy’s clothing, uncoiled her slender length from her blanket and straightened out flat on her stomach.  Her yellow hair made a spot like a patch of sunlight on the dead leaves.  Her clear golden eyes were as brilliant as a lizard’s.

From his blanket at her side a man, gaunt and ragged and deeply bitten by sun and wind, was pulling an automatic pistol from its holster.  The girl set her lips to his ear: 

“Don’t trust him, for God’s sake, Kay,” she breathed.

He nodded, felt forward with cautious handgroping toward a damp patch of moss, and drew himself thither, making no sound among the dry leaves.

“Watch the woods behind us, Yellow-hair,” he whispered.

The girl fumbled in her tattered pocket and produced a pistol.  Then she sat up cross-legged on her blanket, rested one elbow across her knee, and, cocking the poised weapon, swept the southern woods with calm, bright eyes.

Now the man in Swiss uniform called once more across the chasm:  “Attention, Americans I I know you are there; I smell your fire.  Also, what you have done is plain enough for me to see—­that thing lying over there on the edge of the rocks with corpse-flies already whirling over it!  And you had better answer me, Kay McKay!”

Then the man in the forest who now was lying flat behind a birch-tree, answered calmly: 

“You, in your Swiss uniform of artillery, over there, what do you want of me?”

“So you are there!” cried the Swiss, striving to pierce the foliage with eager eyes.  “It is you, is it not, Kay McKay?”

“I’ve answered, have I not?”

“Are you indeed then that same Kay McKay of the Intelligence Service, United States Army?”

“You appear to think so.  I am Kay McKay; that is answer enough for you.”

“Your comrade is with you—­Evelyn Erith?”

“None of your business,” returned McKay, coolly.