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a back-gate to go out at or a barge to sail off in." "I could correct you on that point in a little affair of arms as between gentlemen--if the time and place were more suitable," said M'Iver, warmly. "Let your chief defend himself, friend," said MacDonald. "Man, I'll wager we never see the colour of his face when it comes to close quarters." "I wouldn't wonder," I ventured. "He is in no great trim for fighting, for his arm is----" Sir Alasdair gave a gesture of contempt and cried, "Faugh! we've heard of the raxed arm: he took care when he was making his tale that he never made it a raxed leg." Montrose edged up at this, with a red face and a somewhat annoyed expression. He put his gloved hand lightly on MacDonald's shoulder and chided him for debate with a prisoner of war. "Let our friends be, Alasdair," he said, quietly. "They are, in a way, our guests: they would perhaps be more welcome if their tartan was a different hue, but in any case we must not be insulting them. Doubtless they have their own ideas of his lordship of Argile----" "I never ask to serve a nobler or a more generous chief," said M'Iver, firmly. "I would expect no other sentiment from a gentleman of Argile's clan. He has ever done honestly enough by his own people. But have we not had enough of this? We are wasting our wind that should be more precious, considering the toils before us." We found the descent of Corryarick even more ill than its climbing. The wind from the east had driven the snow into the mouth of it like a wedge. The horses, stepping ahead, more than once slipped into drifts that rose to their necks. Then they became wild with terror, dashed with frantic hooves into deeper trouble, or ran back, quivering in every sinew and snorting with affright till the troopers behove to dismount and lead them. When we in the van reached the foot of the come we looked back on a spectacle that fills me with new wonder to this day when I think of it,--a stream of black specks in the distance dropping, as it were, down the sheer face of white; nearer, the broken bands of different clansmen winding noiselessly and painfully among the drifts, their kilts pinned between their thighs, their plaids crossed on their chests--all their weapons a weariness to them. In the afternoon the snow ceased to fall, but the dusk came on early notwithstanding, for the sky was blotted over with driving clouds. At the head of Glen Roy the MacDonal
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