xtend that as far as possible, and I might
even do pretty well at it. Both she and you would know then that, in
the event of anything happening to you, she would be cared for by
someone she loves."

"My dear Ronald," exclaimed the old man, affectionately laying a hand
on my shoulder, "I'm very glad to hear you say that. As a matter of
fact, whatever happens, I don't care how soon you marry my dear girl.
She wants it with all her heart, and I have always been fond of you
myself. The only thing that has held me back up to now is the question
of money, and, possibly, a little selfishness. I'm not a rich man, as
you know, and if it were not for my pension I couldn't even live in
my father's house. But now my one desire is to see my poor little girl
happy, and we'll scrape together a shilling or two somehow. Shake
hands, my boy."

We both of us forgot all about the terrible war, and, naturally
enough, the mysterious trouble which faced us then was sufficient for
the moment. Having settled that question at last, I conducted the old
man to the small cove where we had made our first discovery, but we
began by visiting the coach-house. I daresay that to the trained eye
there may have been valuable evidence lying under our very noses, but
the only confused marks which we found on the surrounding ground
conveyed nothing to either of us. Later, on our way back to the house,
from what we now called "the embarking-point," we came upon a spot
where the heather had been cut off in fairly large quantities. The old
man stood, and contemplated the shorn stumps for a moment, and shook
his head solemnly. It was not that he had any sentimental regret for
the heather which grew on almost every inch of ground for hundreds of
miles round, but he objected to the sign of visitors, or, as he would
have said, "trippers."

"Who would want to cut heather here?" I asked, for I could not see the
slightest reason for gathering anything which could be obtained at
your door wherever you lived in the Highlands.

"Holiday-makers," he said ruefully. "They take rooms in the village,
and get it into their heads that the heather in one spot is better
than anything else for miles round, so they walk out to that spot, and
cut some to take away with them when they go back home. I wish they'd
always go back home and stop there."

When I showed the General the keel-marks in the cove and explained to
him in detail how Garnesk had arrived at his conclusions, the