The business was so grotesquely outrageous, so utterly and disgustingly hopeless in its surprise and untimelines, that McKay's sharp laugh rang out under the sky. There they were, the same trespassers of the morning, squatted on the heather at the base of Isla Craig--a vast heap of rocks--their machine drawn up in the tall green brakes beside the road. The flashy, fat man, Macniff, had the banjo. The girl sat between him and the thin man, Skelton. "Ah, there, old scout!" called out Macniff, flourishing one hand toward McKay. "Lovely evening, ain't it? Won't you and the wife join us?" There was absolutely nothing to reply to such an invitation. Miss Erith continued to gaze out steadily across Isla Water; McKay, deeply sensitive to the ludicrous, smiled under the grotesque provocation, his eyes mischievously fixed on Miss Erith. After a long while: "They've spoiled it," she said lightly. "Shall we go on, Kay? I can't endure that banjo." They walked on, McKay grinning. The picnickers were getting up from the crushed heather; Macniff with his banjo came toward them on his incredibly thick legs, blocking their path. "Say, sport," he began, "won't you and the lady join us?" But McKay cut him short: "Do you know you are impudent?" he said very quietly. "Step out of the way there." "The hell you say!" and McKay's patience ended at the same instant. And something happened very quickly, for the man only staggered under the smashing blow and the other man's arm flew up and his pistol blazed in the gathering dusk, shattering the cairngorm on McKay's shoulder. The young woman fired from where she sat on the grass and the soft hat was jerked from Miss Erith's head. At the same moment McKay clutched her arm and jerked her violently behind a jutting elbow of Isla Rock. When she recovered her balance she saw he held two pistols. "Boche?" she gasped incredulously. "Yes. Keep your head down. Crouch among the ferns behind me!" There was a ruddy streak of fire from the pistol in his right hand; shots answered, the bullets smacking the rock or whining above it. "Yellow-hair?" "Yes, Kay." "You are not scared, are you?" "Yes; but I'm all right." He said with quiet bitterness: "It's too late to say what a fool I am. Their camouflage took me in; that's all--" He fired again; a rattling volley came storming among the rocks. "We're all right here," he said tersely. But in his heart he was terrified, for he had only the cartridges in his clips. Presently he motioned her to bend over very low. Then, taking her hand, he guided her along an ascending gulley, knee-deep in fern and brake and brier, to a sort of little rocky pulpit. The lake lay behind them, lapping the pulpit's base. There was a man in a boat out there. McKay fired at him and he plied both oars and fled out of range. "Lie down," he whispered to Miss Erith. The girl mutely obeyed.