Toward sunset they found Recklow in the little garden, seated alone there on a bench looking up at the eastward mountains with the piercing, detached stare of a bird of prey.  When they had seated themselves on the faded-green bench on either side of him he said, still gazing toward the mountains:  “It’s April up there.  Dress warmly.”

“Which is Mount Terrible?” inquired Miss Erith.

“Those are the lower ridges.  The summit is not visible from where we sit,” replied Recklow.  And, to McKay:  “There’s some snow there still, I hear.”

McKay’s upward-turned face was a grim study.  Beyond those limestone shouldering heights his terrible Calvary had begun—­a progress that had ended in the wreckage of mind and soul had it not been for Chance and Evelyn Erith.  After Mount Terrible, with its grim “Great Secret,” had come the horrors of the prison camp at Holzminden and its nameless atrocities, his escape to New York, the Hun cipher orders to “silence him,” his miraculous rescue and redemption by the girl at his side—­and now their dual mission to probe the mystery of Mount Terrible.

“McKay,” said Recklow, “I don’t know what the particular mission may be that brings you and Miss Erith to the Franco-Swiss frontier.  I have been merely instructed to carry out your orders whenever you are in touch with me.  And I am ready to do so.”

“How much do you know about us?” asked McKay, turning to him an altered face almost marred by hard features which once had been only careworn and stern.

“I know you escaped from the Holzminden prison-camp in Germany; that you were inhumanly treated there by the Boche; that you entered the United States Intelligence Service; and that, whatever may be your business here, I am to help further it at your request.”  He looked at the girl:  “As concerning Miss Erith, I know only that she is in the same Government service as yourself and that I am to afford her any aid she requests.”

McKay said, slowly:  “My orders are to trust you implicitly.  On one subject only am I to remain silent—­I am not to confide to anybody the particular object which brings us here.”

Recklow nodded:  “I understood as much.  Also I have been instructed that the Boches are determined to discover your whereabouts and do you in before your mission is accomplished.  You, probably, are aware of that, McKay?”

“Yes, I am.”

“By the way—­you know a Captain Herts?”

“Not personally.”

“You’ve been in communication with him?”

“Yes, for some time.”

“Did you wire him from Paris last Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you wire him?”

“At his apartment at Toul.”

“All right.  He was here on Friday....  Somehow I feel uneasy....  He has a way of smiling too brilliantly....  I suppose, after these experiences I’ll remain a suspicious grouch all my life—­but his papers were in order...  I don’t know just why I don’t care for that type of man....  You’re bound for somewhere or other via Mount Terrible, I understand?”