at her.

'Yes, in a passenger ship, for Buenos Ayres.'

'I see it all now,' said my aunt. 'He thinks that no charge can be made
against him there for conspiracy or crime committed at home.'

'Yes, and he thinks still further: he thinks that he will be more
successful with dear Murdoch than he was with either the M'Rae or
myself.'

There was a few minutes' pause, my aunt being the first to break the
silence.

'What a depth of well-schemed villainy!' was the remark she made.

Moncrieff had listened to all the conversation without once putting in a
word. Now all he said was--

'Dinna forget, Miss M'Crimman, the words o' the immortal Bobbie Burns:

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft agley,
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy."'

* * * * *

To the fear and fever consequent upon the depredations committed by the
Indians there succeeded a calmness and lull which the canny Moncrieff
thought almost unnatural, considering all that had gone before. He took
pains to find out whether, as had been currently reported, our Argentine
troops had been victorious all along the frontier line. He found that the
report, like many others, had been grossly exaggerated. If a foe retires,
a foe is beaten by the army which _sees_ that foe retire. This seems too
often to be the logic of the war-path. In the present instance, however,
the Indians belonged to races that lived a nomad life. They were
constantly advancing and retreating. When they chose to advance in this
particular year there was not a sufficient number of cavalry to oppose
them, nor were the soldiers well mounted. The savages knew precisely on
what part of the stage to enter, and they did not think it incumbent on
them to previously warn our Argentine troops. Indeed, they, like sensible
savages, rather avoided a conflict than courted one. It was not conflict
but cattle they were after principally; then if at any time strategy
directed retreat, why, they simply turned their horses' heads to the
desert, the pampas, or mountain wilds, and the troops for a time had seen
the last of them.

I think Moncrieff would have made a capital general, for fancied security
never sent him to sleep. What had happened once might happen again, he
thought, and his _estancias_ were big prizes for Indians to try for,