ith challenge and call, a stupid clamour that gave a clue to the
track we could follow with greatest safety. M'Iver seemingly stopped to
listen, or made up his mind to deviate to the side after a little; for I
soon found myself running alone, and two or three men--to judge by their
cries--keeping as close on me as they could by the sound of my plunging
among twig and bracken. At last, by striking to an angle down a field
that suddenly rolled down beside me, I found soft carpeting for my feet,
and put an increasing distance between us. With no relaxation to my
step, however, I kept running till I seemed a good way clear of Dalness
policies, and on a bridle-path that led up the glen--the very road, as I
learned later, that our enemy had taken on their way from Tynree. I kept
on it for a little as well as I could, but the night was so dark (and
still the rain was pouring though the wind had lowered) that by-and-by
I lost the path, and landed upon rough water-broken rocky land, bare of
tree or bush. The tumult behind me was long since stilled in distance,
the storm itself had abated, and I had traversed for less than an hour
when the rain ceased But still the night was solemn black, though my
eyes by usage had grown apt and accustomed to separate the dense black
of the boulder from the drab air around it. The country is one threaded
on every hand by eas and brook that drop down the mountain sides at
almost every yard of the way. Nothing was to hear but the sound of
running and falling waters, every brook with its own note, a tinkle
of gold on a marble stair as I came to it, declining to a murmur of
sweethearts in a bower as I put its banks behind me after wading or
leaping; or a song sung in a clear spring morning by a girl among
heather hills muffling behind me to the blackguard discourse of banditty
waiting with poignards out upon a lonely highway.

I was lost somewhere north of Glen Etive; near me I knew must be Tynrce,
for I had been walking for two hours and yet I dare not venture back on
the straight route to to-morrow's rendezvous till something of daylight
gave me guidance At last I concluded that the way through the Black
Mount country to Bredalbane must be so dote at hand it would be
stupidity of the densest to go back by Dalness. There was so much level
land round me that I felt sure I must be rounding the Bredalbane hills,
and I chanced a plunge to the left. I had not taken twenty steps when I
ran up against the