ant Donald Oig with the chief of a
band of "broken men" who had a grudge against him. Donald was a famous
swordsman, and the chief had no active relish to try skill with him.
But, again, it was the custom of the country, and the invitation could
not be refused if the chiefship of the "broken men" was to be held,
because here was a test of both courage and honour.

He was a slim fellow, however, this head raider, one with the false
doctrine, as ancient as human nature, that if you succeed it matters
little how. When, then, he and Donald Oig stood up to fight he
exclaimed, "Shake hands on it, first!" But he gripped the extended
right hand hard, intending, with it thus prisoned, to strike a foul
blow and close, in his own favour, a duel which had not begun. Swift
of instinct and eye, Donald saw this, caught out his dagger with his
left hand, and stabbed the foul fighter. The rest of the "broken men,"
being witnesses of it all, had nothing to complain about, and Donald
went his way.

While my thoughts wandered like that, and I ate and, from my pocket
flask, washed my dry eating down, the weather changed with a swiftness
familiar enough among the Scottish mountains. The heavens passed
behind a veil of drifting clouds, through which the sun flared in red,
angry bursts. The elements had declared hostilities, and when I looked
down into the valley, two thousand feet beneath me, I saw a great
thunderstorm on the march, the very panoply of havoc.

It moved as if it were an army going to war, with scout-like horns
thrust out in front and on either side. These were constantly shot by
fangs from the mass of lightning in the clouds, themselves a hell of
angry colours, There was the inky black of the outer sheath, next a
seam of half-black, half-orange, then a depth of iridescence which
constantly changed its hues, and, finally, a molten pot boiling and
rolling in august wrath.

Ah! it was a spectacle to watch, those thunder-clouds come through the
glack, or rift, dividing the falling hill on which I stood, from the
rising one beyond. Down in the valley ran a stream and a track used by
cattle-drovers, and, as my eye went there, I thought I saw a tall
figure. Certainly, for he looked up and, during a moment, we were both
silhouetted in the radiance of light which the thunder-clouds, now
massed into one huge bank, drove before it. If I saw that solitary
figure it was likely he would see me, as we were the only living thin