"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?"