In Secret Part 50

"Yes, Yellow-hair."

"It isn't possible, of course.... But are there any eagles in Europe that have white heads and tails?"

"No."

"I know.... I wish you'd look up at that eagle. He is not very high."

McKay lifted his head. After a moment he rose to his feet, still looking intently skyward. The eagle was sailing very low now.

"THAT'S AN AMERICAN EAGLE!"

The words shot out of McKay's lips. The girl sat upright, electrified.

And now the sun struck full across the great bird as he sheered the tree-tops above. HEAD AND TAIL WERE A DAZZLING WHITE.

"Could--could it be that dead man's eagle?" said the girl. "Oh, could it be Manitou? COULD it, Kay?"

McKay looked at her, and his eye fell on the gold whistle hanging from her wrist on its jewelled chain.

"If it is," he said, "he might notice that whistle. Try it!"

She nodded excitedly, set the whistle to her lips and blew a clear, silvery, penetrating blast upward.

"Kay! Look!" she gasped.

For the response had been instant. Down through the tree-tops sheered the huge bird, the air shrilling through his pinions, and struck the solid ground and set his yellow claws in it, grasping the soil of the Old World with mighty talons. Then he turned his superb head and looked fearlessly upon his two compatriots.

"Manitou! Manitou!" whispered the girl. And crept toward him on her knees, nearer, nearer, until her slim outstretched hand rested on his silver crest.

"Good G.o.d!" said McKay in the low tones of reverence.

McKay had drawn a duplicate of his route-map on thin glazed paper.

Evelyn Erith had finished a duplicate copy of his notes and reports.

Of these and the trinkets of the late Sir W. Blint they made two flat packets, leaving one of them unsealed to receive the brief letter which McKay had begun:

"Dear Lady Blint--

It is not necessary to ask the wife of Sir W. Blint to have courage.

He died as he had lived--a fine and fearless British sportsman.

His death was painless. He lies in the forest of Les Errues. I enclose a map for you.

I and my comrade, Evelyn Erith, dare believe that his eagle, Manitou, has not forgotten the air-path to England and to you. With G.o.d's guidance he will carry this letter to you. And with it certain objects belonging to your husband. And also certain papers which I beg you will have safely delivered to the American Amba.s.sador.

If, madam, we come out of this business alive, my comrade and I will do ourselves the honour of waiting on you if, as we suppose, you would care to hear from us how we discovered the body of the late Sir W. Blint.

Madam, accept homage and deep respect from two Americans who are, before long, rather likely to join your gallant husband in the great adventure."

"Yellow-hair?"

She came, signed the letter. Then McKay signed it, and it was enclosed in one of the packets.

Then McKay took the dead carrier pigeon from the cage and tossed it on the moss. And Manitou planted his terrible talons on the inert ma.s.s of feathers and tore it to shreds.

Evelyn attached the anklet and whistling bell; then she unwound a yard of surgeon's plaster, and kneeling, spread the eagle's enormous pinions, hold-ing them horizontal while McKay placed the two packets and bound them in place under the out-stretched wings.

The big bird had bolted the pigeon. At first he submitted with sulky grace, not liking what was happening, but offering no violence.

And even now, as they backed away from him, he stood in dignified submission, patiently striving to adjust his closed wings to these annoying though light burdens which seemed to have no place among his bronze feathers.

Presently, irritated, the bird partially unclosed one wing as though to probe with his beak for the seat of his discomfort. At the same time he moved his foot, and the bell rattled on his anklet.

Instantly his aspect changed; stooping he inspected the bell, struck it lightly with his beak as though in recognition.

WAS it the hated whistling bell? Again the curved beak touched it.

And recognition was complete.

Mad all through, disgust, indecision, gave rapid place to nervous alarm. Every quill rose in wrath; the snowy crest stood upright; the yellow eyes flashed fire.

Then, suddenly, the eagle sprang into the air, yelping fierce protest against such treatment: the shrilling of the bell swept like a thin gale through the forest, keener, louder, as the enraged bird climbed the air, mounting, mounting into the dazzling blue above until the motionless watchers in the woods below saw him wheel.

Which way would he turn? 'Round and round swept the eagle in wider and more splendid circles; in tensest suspense the two below watched motionless.

Then the tension broke; and a dry sob escaped the girl.

For the eagle had set his lofty course at last. Westward he bore through pathless voids uncharted save by G.o.d alone--who has set His signs to mark those high blue lanes, lest the birds--His lesser children--should lose their way betwixt earth and moon.

CHAPTER IX

THE BLINDER TRAIL

There was no escape that way. From the northern and eastern edges of the forest sheer cliffs fell away into bluish depths where forests looked like lawns and the low uplands of the Alsatian border resembled hillocks made by tunnelling moles. And yet it was from somewhere not far away that a man once had been, carried safely into Alsace on a sudden snowslide. That man now lay among the trees on the crag's edge looking down into the terrific chasm below. He and the girl who crouched in the thicket of alpine roses behind him seemed a part of the light-flecked forest--so inconspicuous were they among dead leaves and trees in their ragged and weather-faded clothing.

They were lean from physical effort and from limited nourishment.

The skin on their faces and hands, once sanguine and deeply burnt by Alpine wind and sun and snow glare, now had become almost colourless, so subtly the alchemy of the open operates on those whose only bed is last year's leaves and whose only shelter is the sky. Even the girl's yellow hair had lost its sunny brilliancy, so that now it seemed merely a misty part of the lovely, subdued harmony of the woods.