raiders until they were merrily "fou."

"Sir," he answered in the parade voice which the regular soldier soon
acquires, this, softened by his nice Scots drawl, "Sir, there's a man
outside an' he says he's a letter for you and that he maun gie it to
yoursel'."

"What's he like? Where does he come from? Is he friend or no friend?"

"Canna' say, sir. I should think no friend. He's short and swack o'
body, red of hair and face, wears a kilt o' Farquharson tartan, and
winna' say where he comes frae. He has a letter for you, sir, and is
to deliver it himself, an' that's a' he'll tell."

"Bring him in," I ordered, and in came, as, by now, I half expected,
Red Murdo, the Black Colonel's henchman. I had seen him before, and by
hearsay was more than familiar with his repute as an excellent servant
to his not so excellent master.

"A letter," he whispered in his hoarse voice, as if he did not want the
corporal to hear. I took the letter, and before I could even break the
seal he was gone again, without motion of salute or further word, all
quite in the Black Colonel's manner of doing things.

It was addressed "To Captain Ian Gordon," and when I opened the
envelope and unfolded the contents I found them to commence with these
same words and no other form of ceremony. I instantly knew the strong,
irregular, aggressive and yet persuasive handwriting to be that of the
Black Colonel, but unconsciously, as a girl tries at the end of a story
to find whether happiness be there, I turned to the signature--"your
kinsman, Jock Farquharson of Inverey." What went before, when I had
time to master it, was this:

"These greetings, which I am inditing in the cold safety of the
Colonel's Bed, a fastness where no enemy has yet tracked me, though all
my true friends in the countryside know the secret roads to it, will be
delivered to you by my faithful Red Murdo, who deserves blessings,
whereas I sometimes give him curses; and their purpose is to tell you
explicitly why I asked you to meet me in the Pass the other evening,
since events, on which I here offer no comment, made it impossible for
us to have any plain, forthright talk.

"I'll reveal the heart of my business by recalling that there is a long
association between our families, who have always been friends and
enemies, and that the Corgarff Forbeses also come into this
association, and continue it, in a fashion which takes me to our
personal quarrel of Stuart and Guelph, be