ck o' my hand," said Dan, and led us, with never
a break, to an easy crossing.

And now we took the greatest care of our going, for a great hill rose
before us steep, as it seemed to me, as the wall of a house, and then
all our care was made useless, for the snow began again.

Slowly, blindly we clambered and spelled up the hillside, now numb with
cold, now fiery hot, Dan always in the lead, and me groaning at his
hurdie.

"Keep a stout heart, Hamish; this is the last o't."

We were now, as it were, on a ladder on the hill face, for there were a
succession of great holes like steps, on each of which three men could
stand--the giant's steps, the old folks called them.

At the back of the step where we three lay was a grey rock, as though
the earth had been worn away, leaving the rock partly bare. As we lay
Dan struck it three times with a stone about the size of a
putting-ball, and a great low baying sounded, and my blood ran cold,
and then the grey rock moved inch by inch, and I heard a great rift of
Gaelic, and Dan went crawling like a snake through the hole, and myself
and McKinnon at his heels.

"Welcome, hearty welcome; whatever drives ye sae fast. Welcome to
McAllan's Locker."

"It's latish for ceilidhing," said Dan. "I'm hoping me and my friends
are not putting ye out in any ways, but just a shakedown o' breckans is
all we're asking, and thankful for it."

"Better the bottom o' the locker than the end o' the cable. Sit ye
doon and warm yourself."

I was sore done wi' the long running, and lay on the rook floor with my
head on my arms, and I felt as a hound feels after a long chase, till
the caveman answered Dan. At the first I thought his tongue had been
malformed as he stood in the light, for a growling and grumbling came
from his throat; and as he growled, from the darkness of the chamber a
great brindled dog stalked to his side and stretched his fore-paws,
opened a mouth like a red pit, and whined with outstretched curling
tongue.

"He would tear down a stag, him," says Dan, nodding at the brute.
Again came the growling rumbling from the stranger.

"Hark tae him, Marr; hark tae him--a stag. Ho, ho, ho! He would tear
a man's throat oot at his first leap," and man and dog rumbled and
growled in devilish mirth. "Sing tae me, dog--sing," and the man threw
his head up, and there came the long greeting howl of a dog baying the
moon, and dog and man howled in unison, with swaying bodies and heads