"No way out, Kay?" she asked under her breath.
"No way THAT way, Yellow-hair."
"Then?"
"I don't—know," he said slowly.
"You mean that we ought to turn back."
"Yes, we ought to. The forest is narrowing very dangerously for us. It runs to a point five miles farther east, overlooking impassable gulfs…. We should be in a cul-de-sac, Yellow-hair."
"I know."
He mused for a few moments, cool, clear-eyed, apparently quite undisturbed by their present peril and intent only on the mission which had brought them here, and how to execute it before their unseen trackers executed them.
"To turn now, and attempt to go back along this precipice, is to face every probability of meeting the men we have so far managed to avoid," he said aloud in his pleasant voice, but as though presenting the facts to himself alone.
"Of course we shall account for some of the Huns; but that does not help us to win through…. Even an exchange of shots would no doubt be disastrous to our plans. We MUST keep away from them…. Otherwise we could never hope to creep into the valley alive,… Tell me, Yellow-hair, have you thought of anything new?"