eral minutes. Then the
superintendent said bitterly:

"It was you hurrying me off to look in thae other carriages, Robbie!"

"What was?" inquired Mr. MacAlister a little nervously.

"I ought to have stopped and looked under the seats!"

Mr. MacAlister shook his head and declared firmly:

"There was naething under the seats. I could see that fine. And onyhow
we can hae a look at the next stop."

"As if he'll be waiting for us, now he kens we're looking for him!"

"But there was naething there!" persisted Mr. MacAlister.

"Then what's come over the man? Here were we sitting next the platform.
He can't have got out afore we started, or we'd have seen him. Folks
don't disappear into the air! I'll try under the seats, though I doubt
the man will have been up and out while we were wasting our time in yon
other carriages."

At the next station they searched that mysterious compartment earnestly
and thoroughly, but there was not a sign of the muffled stranger, under
the seats or anywhere else. Again the superintendent was silent for a
space, and then he said confidentially:

"I'm just wondering if it's worth while reporting the thing, Robbie. The
fiscal might have a kin' of unpleasant way of looking at it. Besides,
there's really naething to report. Anyhow I'll think it over. And that
being the case, the less said the better. I can tell ye all that's known
about the case, Robbie; knowing that you'll be discreet."

"Oh, you can trust me," said Mr. MacAlister earnestly,--"I'll no breathe
a word o' yon man. Weel, now, you were saying you'd tell me the haill
story."

By this judicious arrangement Mr. MacAlister got his money's worth of
sensational disclosures, and the superintendent was able to use his
discretion and think the incident over. He thought over it very hard and
finally decided that he was demonstrating his vigilance quite
sufficiently without mentioning the trifling mystery of the empty
compartment.

XX

THE SPORTING VISITOR

In summer and autumn, visitors were not uncommon in this remote
countryside; mostly shooting or fishing people who rented the country
houses, raised the local prices, and were described by the tradesmen as
benefiting the county greatly. But in late autumn and winter this
fertilising stream ceased to flow, and when the trains from the south
crawled in, the porters and the boots from the hotels resigned
themselves to welcoming a merely commercial form of traveller.

It w