ne,--but he didn't.
Remember, he felt like quitting and didn't, And that's the finest thing
a chap can do,--never to quit, even when he feels like it. Do you see?"

The lad's head went up. "I see," he said, his eyes glowing. "It was
fine! I'm awfully glad he didn't quit, 'specially when he felt like it.
You tell him for me." His idol was firm again on his pedestal.

"All right, old chap," said his big brother. "You'll never quit, I bet!"

"Not if I'm fit, will I?"

"Right you are! Keep fit--that's the word!"

And with that the big brother passed out to find the man who was
writhing in an agony of self-contempt; for in the face of all Scotland
and in the hour of her need he had failed because he wasn't fit.

After an hour Dunn found his man, fixed in the resolve to there and then
abandon the game with all the appurtenances thereof, and among these the
dinner. Mightily his captain laboured with him, plying him with varying
motives,--the honour of the team was at stake; the honour of the country
was at stake; his own honour, for was he not down on the programme for
the pipes? It was all in vain. In dogged gloom the half-back listened
unmoved.

At length Dunn, knowing well the Highlander's tender heart, cunningly
touched another string and told of Rob's distress and subsequent relief,
and then gave his half-back the boy's message. "I promised to tell you,
and I almost forgot. The little beggar was terribly worked up, and as
I remember it, this is what he said: 'I'm awfully glad he didn't quit,
'specially when he felt like it.' Those were his very words."

Then Cameron buried his face in his hands and groaned aloud, while Dunn,
knowing that he had reached his utmost, stood silent, waiting. Suddenly
Cameron flung up his head:

"Did he say I didn't quit? Good little soul! I'll go; I'd go through
hell for that!"

And so it came that not in a crate, but in the gallant garb of a
Highland gentleman, pipes and all, Cameron was that night in his place,
fighting out through the long hilarious night the fiercest fight of his
life, chiefly because of the words that lay like a balm to his lacerated
heart:

"He didn't quit, 'specially when he felt like it."

CHAPTER II

THE GLEN OF THE CUP OF GOLD

Just over the line of the Grampians, near the head-waters of the Spey, a
glen, small and secluded, lies bedded deep among the hills,--a glen that
when filled with sunlight on a summer day lies like a cup of gold; the
go