e they came near, riding the
bog-edge to fire at me, I took careful aim and shot at the first of
them. The ball went through the calf of his leg, which caused him to
light off the far-side of his horse with a great roar.

"You have killed me," he cried over to me complainingly, as if he had
been a good friend come to pay me a visit, to whom I had done a
treachery. Then he cursed me very resentfully, because forsooth (as he
said) he was about to be made a sergeant in the company, and, what with
lying up with his wounded leg, some other (whom he mentioned) would get
the post by favour of the captain.

"See what you have done!" said he, holding up his leg.

But I took aim with the other pistol and sent a ball singing over his
head, very close.

"Trip it, my bonny lad," I cried, "or there will be a hole of the same
size in your thick head--which will be as good as a cornet's commission
to you in the place to which it will send you!"

Then I charged my pistols again and ordered them away. The trooper's
companion made bold to leave his horse and come towards me crawling upon
the moss. But I turned my pistols so straightly upon him, that he was
convinced that I must be a marksman by trade and so desisted from the
attempt.

All this made me proud past reasoning, and I mounted in their sight, and
made a work of fastening my accoutrements and tightening Donald's
girths.

"So good-day to you!" I cried to them, "and give my compliments to your
captain and tell him from me that he hath a couple of varlets in his
company very careful of their skins in this world--which is, maybe, as
well--seeing that in the next they are secure of getting them well
paid."

Now this was but the word of a silly boy, and I was sorry for taunting
the men before ever I rode away. But I set it down as it happened, that
all may come in its due place, nothing in this history being either
altered or extenuated.

So all that night I fled and the next day also, till I came into my own
country of the Glenkens, where near to Carsphairn I left Donald with a
decent man that would keep him safe for my mother's sake. For the little
beast was tired and done, having come so far and been ridden so hard.
Yet when I left him out in the grass-park, there was not so much as the
mark of a spur upon him, so willingly had he come over all the leagues
of heather-lands.

While life lasts shall I not forget Donald.

My father used often to tell us what Maxwell of M