Above it the taut cable vibrated and sang weirdly in the silence of the chasm.
The girl was still lying flat under the walnut-tree when McKay came back.
Without speaking he knelt, levelled his pistol and fired across at the man beyond the hog-back.
Instantly her pistol flashed, too; one of the men fell and tried to get up in a blind sort of way, and his comrades caught him by the arms and dragged him back behind the ledge.
"All right!" shouted one of the men from his cover, "we've plently of time to deal with you Yankee swine! Stay there and rot!"
"That was Skelton's voice," whispered Miss Erith with an involuntary shudder.
"They'll never attempt that hog-back under our pistols now," said McKay coolly. "Come, Yellow-hair; we're going forward."
"How?" she asked, bewildered.
"By cable, little comrade," he said, with a shaky gaiety that betrayed the tension of his nerves. "So pack up and route-step once more!"
He turned and looked at her and his face twitched: "You wonderful girl," he said, "you beautiful, wonderful girl! We'll live to fly our pigeons yet, Yellow-hair, under the very snout of the whole Hun empire!"