rning of some kind. Is it
of any account?'

'Well, there's always some water where the stirkie drowns; there's always
some fire where you see smoke; and it is better to be sure than sorry.'

I could elicit no more information from my canny countryman than that. I
said nothing to any one, not even my brothers. Why should I cause them the
slightest alarm, and speak a word that might tend to make them sleep less
soundly?

However, as soon as the halt was made, I was glad to see that Moncrieff
took every precaution against a surprise. The caravan was made the centre
of a square, the waggons being 'laggered' around it. The fire was lit and
the dinner cooked close beside a sheltering _barranca_, and as soon as
this meal was discussed the fire was extinguished.

'Then came still evening on,'

and we all gathered together for prayer. Even the Gauchos were summoned,
though I fear paid but little attention, while Moncrieff, standing
bare-headed in the midst of us, read a chapter from the Book by the pale
yellow light of the western sky. Then, still standing--

'Brothers, let us pray,' he said.

Erect there, with the twilight shadows falling around him, with open eyes
and face turned skywards, with the sunset's after-glow falling on his hard
but comely features, his plaid depending from his broad shoulders, I could
not help admiring the man. His prayer--and it was but brief--had all the
trusting simplicity of a little child's, yet it was in every way the
prayer of a man communing with his God; in every tone thereof was breathed
belief, reliance, gratitude, and faith in the Father.

As he finished, Dugald pressed my arm and pointed eastwards, smiling. A
star had shone out from behind a little cloud, and somehow it seemed to
me as if it were an angel's eye, and that it would watch over us all the
live-long night. Our evening service concluded with that loveliest of
hymns, commencing--

'O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Thy children still are fed;
Who through this weary wilderness
Hath all our fathers led.'

He gave it out in the old Scotch way, two lines at a time, and to the tune
'Martyrdom.'

It was surely appropriate to our position and our surroundings, especially
that beautiful verse--

'Oh, spread Thy covering wings around,
Till all our wanderings cease,
And at