ling, squat of form, thatched with rushes, floored with earth, and
eat a bannock and drink a bowl of goat's milk, while my message went
forward and an answer returned. Perhaps two hours passed, and I slept
a little, for I was tired, before that answer did arrive by the eternal
Red Murdo.

To be sure, I would be made welcome by his master, but I must not feel
offended if I was blindfolded during the walk to the Colonel's Bed.
This request, courteously put by Red Murdo, showed me the situation I
had invited for myself, but, having gone so far, I was not to turn
back, and I said, "Very well." He tied a coarse tartan scarf of
home-spun wool, which he wore himself, tightly round my eyes, so
tightly that at first it hurt a little, and we started for our
destination.

We had a rough, difficult track, all up and down again, to follow, as
my feet discovered, with no sight to guide them. But Red Murdo, a
study in loyalty to his chief and in consideration for me, supported me
sturdily, and I broke no shin on the many rocks strewing our road.

I was wondering if we should ever arrive, when I heard the rush of a
stream almost beneath us. Instinctively I stopped, as one does when an
unseen danger is near, but Red Murdo said, "It's a' right; we're near
there." Next I felt as if I were walking in a cave, for there was a
peculiar hollow echo to our tread. Then the tartan scarf was removed
from my eyes, and, opening them, I saw the Black Colonel holding out
his hand.

"Glad, Sir Visitor, to see you," he said, "and such hospitality as this
poor place can offer is yours."

I took his hand, without holding it, bowed stiffly, and sat myself on a
chair made of birch branches, to which he pointed. It was, apart from
an equally rude litter-bed and a rough table, the only furniture in the
refuge. This I saw by the light of a fire of broken wood and peat
which burned slowly in a corner, where, apparently, the smoke found
some channel of escape, because it drifted slowly upward in spirals.

My feeling had been right, for this was a cave, or, rather, a tunnel,
worn in the course of centuries by the stream which had now deserted
it, to flow lower down. Above us, as I judged, rose the side of a
small hill, and immediately without there would be a sheer drop to the
departed waters, whose noise soughed like a strong wind among pine
trees.

It was a retreat made by Nature in her chance moods, and used by the
Black Colonel at that strai