the whole he judged it
prudent to retire to Perth. That he might do this with more speed he
blew up his ammunition train, to prevent it falling into Dundee's hands.
Mackay, who, as soon as he learned that Ramsay was fairly on the road,
had marched with all speed from Inverness, was too late to save Ruthven
Castle. It had been surrendered by the governor, Captain Forbes, on the
29th, and reduced to a heap of ruins.

This was the beginning of a series of marches and counter-marches on the
part of the two generals, which lasted far into June, without any
advantage on either side. On one occasion a party of the Macleans of
Lochbuy, marching to join Dundee in Badenoch, came to blows with some of
Livingstone's dragoons; and there were other skirmishes, of no material
result, at none of which was either general present in person. More than
once Dundee was in striking distance of Mackay; but he never found
himself in a position to engage with sufficient assurance of victory. A
defeat he dared not risk; and even victory, unless complete enough to
need no second blow, had its dangers. An army which considered the safe
storage of his booty as the first duty of a successful soldier could not
safely be trusted to make good the result of a doubtful battle. And in
fact he found his forces each day diminishing as food became more scarce
in those barren wilds, or as some lucky raid necessitated a departure
for home with the prize. At length, wisely determining to sanction what
he could not prevent, and feeling that even his iron frame and dauntless
spirit were in need of rest, Dundee dismissed the clans for the present,
on their giving a promise to join him again when he should require them.
Keeping only some two hundred of the Macleans with him, he returned to
his old quarters, on the pressing invitation of Lochiel, who swore to
him that while there was a cow in Lochaber neither he nor his men should
want. Mackay did not attempt to follow him. At such a game of
hide-and-seek he saw that his men were no match for the active
light-marching Highlanders. He accordingly put garrisons into certain
fortified parts of Invernessshire and Perthshire, sent the rest into
quarters, and himself repaired to Edinburgh.

From the middle of June to the end of July the war therefore languished.
But Dundee was not idle. The arts of diplomacy were as familiar to him
as the arts of war. He still maintained an active correspondence with
the neutral chiefs,