rst out with, "Bah! Pistol him, Boyd."

"Your Highness asks what is not fitting for you to require nor for me to
perform," answered that young nobleman.

The Duke, in a fury, turned to a passing dragoon and bade him shoot the
young man. Charles Fraser dragged himself to his feet by a great effort
and looked at the butcher with a face of infinite scorn while the soldier
was loading his piece.

"Your Highness," began Wolfe, about to remonstrate.

"Sir, I command you to be silent," screamed the Duke.

The trooper presented his piece at the Fraser, whose steady eyes never
left the face of Cumberland.

"God save King James!" cried Inverallachie in English, and next moment
fell dead from the discharge of the musket.

The faces of the four Englishmen who rode with the Duke were stern and
drawn. Wolfe dismounted from his horse and reverently covered the face of
the dead Jacobite with a kerchief.

"God grant that when our time comes we may die as valiantly and as loyally
as this young gentleman," he said solemnly, raising his hat.

Volney, Boyd, and Wolfe's subaltern uncovered, and echoed an "Amen."
Cumberland glared from one to another of them, ran the gamut of all tints
from pink to deepest purple, gulped out an apoplectic Dutch oath, and dug
the rowels deep into his bay. With shame, sorrow, and contempt in their
hearts his retinue followed the butcher across the field.

My face was like the melting winter snows. I could not look at the
Macdonald, nor he at me. We mounted in silence and rode away. Only once he
referred to what we had seen.

"Many's the time that Charlie Fraser and I have hunted the dun deer across
the heather hills, and now----" He broke into Gaelic lamentation and
imprecation, then fell as suddenly to quiet.

We bore up a ravine away from the roads toward where a great gash in the
hills invited us, for we did not need to be told that the chances of
safety increased with our distance from the beaten tracks of travel. A man
on horseback came riding behind and overhauled us rapidly. Presently we
saw that he was a red-coated officer, and behind a huge rock we waited to
pistol him as he came up. The man leaped from his horse and came straight
toward us. I laid a hand on Captain Roy's arm, for I had recognized Major
Wolfe. But I was too late. A pistol ball went slapping through the Major's
hat and knocked it from his head. He stooped, replaced it with the utmost
composure, and continued to advance, at