ad been bewildering Gavinia, and now she
broke in, eagerly: "But what was it he did? I thought he was agin Mr.
McLean."

"And so did I," said Corp.

"I cheated you grandly," replied Tommy with the audacity he found so
useful.

"And a' the time you was pretending to be agin him," screamed Gavinia,
"was you--was you bringing this about on the sly?"

Tommy looked up into Mr. McLean's face, but could get no guidance from
it, so he said nothing; he only held his head higher than ever. "Oh, the
clever little curse!" cried Corp, and Elspeth's delight was as ecstatic,
though differently worded. Yet Gavinia stuck to her problem, "How did
you do it, what was it you did?" and the cruel McLean said: "You may
tell her, Tommy; you have my permission."

It would have been an awkward position for most boys, and even
Tommy--but next moment he said, quite coolly: "I think you and me and
Miss Ailie should keep it to oursels, Gavinia's sic a gossip."

"Oh, how thoughtful of him!" cried Miss Ailie, the deceived, and McLean
said: "How very thoughtful!" but now he saw in a flash why Mr. Cathro
still had hopes that Tommy might carry a bursary.

Thus was the repentant McLean pardoned, and nothing remained for him to
do save to show the crew his Lair, which they had sworn to destroy. He
had behaved so splendidly that they had forgotten almost that they were
the emissaries of justice, but not to destroy the Lair seemed a pity, it
would be such a striking way of bringing their adventures in the Den to
a close. The degenerate Stuart read this feeling in their faces, and he
was ready, he said, to show them his Lair if they would first point it
out to him; but here was a difficulty, for how could they do that? For a
moment it seemed as if the negotiations must fall through; but Sandys,
that captain of resource, invited McLean to step aside for a private
conference, and when they rejoined the others McLean said, gravely, that
he now remembered where the Lair was and would guide them to it.

They had only to cross a plank, invisible in the mist until they were
close to it, and climb a slippery bank strewn with fallen trees. McLean,
with a mock serious air, led the way, Miss Ailie on his arm. Corp and
Gavinia followed, weighted and hampered by their new half-crowns, and
Tommy and Elspeth, in the rear, whispered joyously of the coming life.
And so, very unprepared for it, they moved toward the tragedy of the
night.

CHAPTER XXXI

A LET