I play a little," said Cameron. "I have a set in the house."

"God bless my soul!" cried Mack, "and we never knew it. Tell Danny where
they are and he will fetch them out. Go, Danny!"

"Never mind, I will get them myself," said Cameron, trying to conceal
his eagerness, for he had long been itching for a chance to play and his
fingers were now tingling for the chanter.

It was an occasion of great delight, not only to big Mack and his
brother Danny and the others, but to Cameron himself. Up and down the
floor he marched, making the rafters of the big barn ring with the
ancient martial airs of Scotland and then, dropping into a lighter
strain, he set their feet a-rapping with reels and strathspeys.

"Man, yon's great playing!" cried Mack with fervent enthusiasm to the
company who had gathered to the summons of the pipes from the house and
from the high road, "and think of him keeping them in his chest all this
time! And what else can you do?" went on Mack, with the enthusiasm of a
discoverer. "You have been in the big games, too, I warrant you."

Cameron confessed to some experience of these thrilling events.

"Bless my soul! We will put you against the big folk from the city. Come
and show us the hammer," said Mack, leading the way out of the barn, for
the rain had ceased, with a big mason's hammer in his hand. It needed
but a single throw to make it quite clear to Cameron that Mack was
greatly in need of coaching. As he said himself he "just took up the
thing and gave it a fling." A mighty fling, too, it proved to be.

"Twenty-eight paces!" cried Cameron, and then, to make sure, stepped
it back again. "Yes," he said, "twenty-eight paces, nearly twenty-nine.
Great Caesar! Mack, if you only had the Braemar swing you would be a
famous thrower."

"Och, now, you are just joking me!" said Mack modestly.

"You can add twenty feet easily to your throw if you get the swing,"
asserted Cameron. "Look here, now, get this swing," and Cameron
demonstrated in his best style the famous Braemar swing.

"Thirty-two paces!" said Mack in amazement after he had measured the
throw. "Man alive! you can beat McGee, let alone myself."

"Now, Mack, get the throw," said Cameron, with enthusiasm. "You will be
a great thrower." But try though he might Mack failed to get the swing.

"Man, come over to-night and bring your pipes. Danny will fetch out his
fiddle and we will have a bit of a frolic, and," he added, as if in an
afterthought,