would have dreamed
of disquieting you. I am in a wholly different case. They are eager to
see me hanged, and would not hesitate to make it high treason--"

"High treason only affects the person of the King," said Julian Wemyss;
"not that that will help matters much, the Regent's judges being what
they are."

"At any rate," said Stair, "killing a blue-jacket or an exciseman will
do us no good, and I am for firing blanks except in the very last
extremity--of course, if it is our life or that of another man, I think
we owe it to ourselves to see that the funeral is the other fellow's!"

Stair Garland slept that night outside, wrapped in his plaid, with
Whitefoot crouched in the corner of it. The watcher's back was against
the door of the Bothy, the key of which was in his pocket. He was taking
care that his ex-spy did not take it into his head to escape the ordeal
of the morning.

At daybreak Stair rose to his feet and shook himself comprehensively.
His limbs were stiff with the cold and damp. Whitefoot had been alert
most of the night. He was unquiet and whined occasionally to himself,
but very softly. The fires on the sand-dunes agitated him--perhaps also
the unrest of his master, who with his own comfortable bed within a
dozen yards, had chosen so incommodious a way of spending the night.
Every few minutes Whitefoot aroused himself and paced stealthily round
the little hut, his head in the air, sniffing the four winds for
information. He tried the black lipping water with his paw and shook it
dry again. That also he did not understand. However, he believed that
Stair Garland did. The knowledge comforted him and sent him back to the
nook of his master's plaid, where he nestled down without turning round,
which was perhaps the most wonderful accomplishment of this wonderful
dog.

* * * * *

Whether Eben McClure, ex-superintendent of recruitment and common
informer, slept well or not during the first night of the investing of
the Bothy of the Wild, is known only to himself. He at least pretended
to pass an excellent night. The pretence was forced upon him by Stair
Garland camping outside, his rifle ready to his hand, and the ceaseless
patter of Whitefoot's alert sentry-go going round and round the hut.

By half-past five the day was beginning to come. Stair entered the
Bothy, shook Eben by the shoulder and bade him prepare breakfast. Meals
must now be taken as occasion served, and