SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan John

in the direction from which the two had come in the morning. As the ravine narrowed the stag had evidently taken to the burn, for there were splashes on the rocks and a tinge of red in the pools.

      “He’s no far off,” Wattie croaked. “See, man, he’s verra near done. He’s slippin’ sair.”

      And then, as they mounted, they came on a little pool where the water was dammed as if by a landslip. There, his body half under the cascade, lay the stag, stone dead, his great horns parting the fall like a pine swept down by a winter spate.

      The two regarded him in silence, till Wattie was moved to pronounce his epitaph.

      “It’s yersel, ye auld hero, and ye’ve come by a grand end. Ye’ve had a braw life traivellin’ the hills, and ye’ve been a braw beast, and the fame o’ ye gaed through a’ the country-side. Ye micht have dwined awa in the cauld winter and dee’d in the wame o’ a snaw-drift. Or ye might have been massacred by ane o’ the Haripol sumphs wi’ ten bullets in the big bag. But ye’ve been killed clean and straucht by John Macnab, and that is a gentleman’s death, whatever.”

      “That’s all very well,” said Lamancha, “but you know I tailored the shot.”

      “Ye’re a fule,” cried the rapt Wattie. “Ye did no siccan thing. It was a verra deeficult shot, and ye put it deid in the only place ye could see. I will not have seen many better shots at all, at all.’

      “What about the gralloch?” Lamancha asked.

      “No here. If the mist lifted Macqueen micht see us. It’s no fifty yards to the top o’ the Beallach, and we’ll find a place there for the job.”

      Wattie produced two ropes and bound the fore-feet and the hind-feet together. Then he rapidly climbed to the summit, and reported on his return that the mist was thick there, and that there were no tracks except their own of the morning. It was a weary business dragging the carcass up a nearly perpendicular slope. First with difficulty they raised it out of the burn channel, and then drew it along the steep hill-side. They had to go a long way up the hill-side to avoid the rock curtain on the edge of the Beallach, but eventually the top was reached, and the stag was deposited behind some boulders on the left of the flat ground. Here, even if the mist lifted, they would be hid from the sight of Macqueen, and from any sentries there might be on the Crask side.

      Wattie flung off his coat and proceeded with gusto to his gory task. The ravens, which had been following them for the past hour, came nearer and croaked encouragement from the ledges of Sgurr Dearg and Sgurr Mor. Wattie was in high spirits, for he whistled softly at his work; but Lamancha, after his first moment of satisfaction, was restless with anxiety. He had still to get his trophy out of the forest, and there seemed many chances of a slip between his lips and that cup. He was impatient for Wattie to finish, for the air seemed to him lightening. An ominous brightness was flushing the mist towards the south, and the rain had declined to the thinnest of drizzles. He told Wattie of his fears.

      “Aye, it’ll be a fine afternoon. I foresaw that, but that’s maybe not a bad thing, now that we’re out o’ Macqueen’s sight.”

      Wattie completed his job, and hid the horrid signs below a pile of sods and stones. “Nae poch-a-bhuie for me the day,” he grinned. “I’ve other things to think of besides my supper.” He wiped his arms and hands in the wet heather and put on his coat. Then he produced a short pipe, and, as he turned away to light it, a figure suddenly stood beside Lamancha and made his heart jump.

      “My hat!” said Palliser-Yeates, “what a head! That must be about a record for Wester Ross. I never got anything as good myself. You’re a lucky devil, Charles.”

      “Call me lucky when the beast is safe at Crask. What about your side of the hill?”

      “Pretty quiet. I’ve been here for hours and hours, wondering where on earth you two had got to…There’s four fellows stuck at intervals along the hill-side, and I shouldn’t take them to be very active citizens. But there’s a fifth who does sentry-go, and I don’t fancy the look of him so much. Looks a keen chap, and spry on his legs. What’s the orders for me? The place has been playing hide-and-seek, and half the time I’ve been sitting coughing in a wet blanket. If it stays thick I suppose my part is off.”

      Wattie, stirred again into fierce life, peered into the thinning fog.

      “Damn! The mist’s liftin’. I’ll get the beast ower the first screes afore it’s clear, and once I’m in the burn I’ll wait for ye. I can manage the first bit fine mysel’—I could manage it a’, if there was nae hurry…Bide you here till I’m weel startit, for I don’t like the news o’ that wandering navvy. And you sir”—this to Palliser-Yeates—“be ready to show yourself down the hill-side as soon as it’s clear enough for the folk to see ye. Keep well to the west, and draw them off towards Haripol. There’s a man posted near the burn, but he’s the farthest east o’ them, and for God’s sake keep them to the west o’ me and the stag. Ye’re an auld hand at the job, and should hae nae deeficulty in ficklin’ a wheen heavy-fitted navvies. Is Sir Erchibald there wi’ the cawr?”

      “I suppose so. The time he was due the fog was thick. I couldn’t pick him up from here with the glass when the weather cleared, but that’s as it should be, for the place he selected was absolutely hidden from this side.”

      “Well, good luck to us a’.” Wattie tossed off a dram from the socket of Lamancha’s flask, and, dragging the stag by the horns, disappeared in two seconds from sight.

      “I’ll be off, Charles,” said Palliser-Yeates, “for I’d better get down-hill and down the glen before I start.” He paused to stare at his friend. “By Gad, you do look a proper blackguard. Do you realise that you’ve a face like a nigger and a two-foot rent in your bags? It would be good for Johnson Claybody’s soul to see you!”

      XII.

       HARIPOL—TRANSPORT

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      It may be doubted whether in clear weather Sir Archie could ever have reached his station unobserved by the watchers on the hill. The place was cunningly chosen, for the road, as it approached the Doran, ran in the lee of a long covert of birch and hazel, so that for the better part of a mile no car on it could be seen from beyond the stream, even from the highest ground. But as the car descended from the Crask ridge it would have been apparent to the sentinels, and its non-appearance beyond the covert would have bred suspicion. As it was the clear spell had gone before it topped the hill, for Sir Archie was more than an hour behind the scheduled time.

      This was Janet’s doing. She had started off betimes on the yellow pony for Crask, intending to take the by-way from the Larrig side, but before she reached the Bridge of Larrig she had scented danger. One of the correspondents, halted by the roadside with a motor bicycle, accosted her with great politeness and begged a word. She was Miss Raden, wasn’t she? and therefore knew all about John Macnab. He had heard gossip in the glen of the coming raid on Haripol, and understood that this was the day. Would Miss Raden advise him from her knowledge of the country-side? Was it possible to find some coign of vantage from which he might see the fun?

      Janet stuck to the simple truth. She had heard the some story, she admitted, but Haripol was a gigantic and precipitous forest, and it was preserved with a nicety unparalleled in her experience. To go to Haripol in the hope of finding John Macnab would be like a casual visit to England on the chance of meeting the King. She advised him to go to Haripol in the evening. “If anything has happened there,” she said, “you will hear about from the gillies. They’ll either be triumphant or savage, and in either case they’ll talk.”

      “We’ve got to get a story, Miss Raden,” the correspondent observed dismally, “and in this roomy place it’s like looking for a needle in a hayfield. What sort of people are the Claybodys?”

      “You won’t get anything from them,” Janet laughed. “Take