rests?"

"That old fire-eater! If he hadn't been such a maniac, I should never
have made the mistake I did. I tell you the whole thing was
misrepresented to me. Stanwell and his wife and, as I was told, his
child too, died just before I landed here. This property of his was
partially cleared, but was represented to me as totally unclaimed. You
know that as well as I do. Don't you remember the day I left Toronto
to come up here? Well, after I had spent hundreds of dollars on the
place that old Lord of the Isles got wind of it away back there in the
bush, and came down on me like a deposed king. He talked so loud and
so fast, and half of it in Gaelic, that I paid no attention to him, and
at last ordered him off the place. My brother Harold had been
instrumental in getting the place for me, so I wrote him and asked if
it was possible that anyone connected with Captain Stanwell could have
any claim on my property. He wrote back to say that Stanwell and
everyone belonging to him were dead, but that he would come up soon and
see about it. Well, you know he died the next week, and little
Bluebell was left to me. Those were hard times for me, Archie, as you
know. Maud was taken next, and I was left alone with two helpless
children on my hands and my finances in the very deuce of a state. I
forgot all about everything but the troubles that had come upon me.
Then I sent for Eleanor to look after my family, and after she came I
had other reasons you know nothing about for keeping silent concerning
Captain Stanwell. And so the years slipped away, and there it is, you
see. If I had given up the property when I settled here first I should
have been almost destitute. Now, I ask you, is there any living man
could blame me?"

Monteith answered warily. "There are not many men who would have acted
differently in your place, I fear, only--it's rather hard on the boy."

"Pshaw, I don't believe the boy's claim was worth a brass farthing. If
it was, why couldn't his old grandfather have gone to law about it?"

Monteith shook his head. "You don't know those Highlanders; they would
sooner be bereft of every stick or stone they possess than enter a law
court. Besides, you can't deny, Captain, that even had Big Malcolm
wished to take such measures, he well knew that in those days a man of
his class hadn't much chance against one of yours."

Captain Herbert tramped up and down the little room. Monteith sat
silent, waitin