at shall
we call it?"

"Let's call it the Rob Roy Clan," said Alan.

"Hooray!" roared Sandy again.

"If we're a Clan, we'll have to have a chief," said Jean, "and if
the Chief bids us do anything, we'll just have to do it. That's
the way it was in the real Rob Roy Clan. Father said so."

"Jock thought of it first. Let him be Chief," said Alan.

"No!" cried Jean promptly. "Are you thinking I'll put my head in
a bag like that, and he my own brother? 'Deed, I'd never get a
lick of work out of him on Saturday if I did! Na, na, lads!
Whoever's Chief, it won't be Jock."

"Maybe you'd like to be the Chief yourself," retorted Jock, "but
it's enough to be bossed by you at home! Besides, whoever heard
of a girl being Chief, anyway?"

"Alan can be Chief," said Jean, and so the matter was settled.

"If I'm Chief," said Alan, "you'll all have to swear an oath of
fealty to me."

"What's an oath of fealty?" Jock demanded suspiciously, and Jean
added in a shocked voice, "Alan, you'd never be asking us to take
the name of the Lord in vain!"

"It's not that kind of an oath," laughed Alan. "You just have to
vow to obey the Chief in everything." Then an idea popped into
his head. "In a real Clan they are all kinsmen, but here's Sandy,
and he's neither Campbell nor McGregor. We'll have to make a
blood brother of him before he can join."

"What's a blood brother? How do you make 'em?" asked Sandy.

"I'll show you," said Alan. He drew his knife from his pocket and
while the other three watched him in breathless admiration, he
made a little cut in his wrist and immediately passed the knife
to Jock. "You do the same," he commanded.

Jock obeyed his Chief and passed the knife to Jean, who promptly
followed his example.

"Now, Sandy," said Alan.

Sandy hated the sight of blood, and he was a little pale under
his freckles as he shut his eyes and jabbed himself gingerly with
the point. Then Alan took a drop of blood from each wrist and
mingled them with a drop from Sandy's.

"Now, Sandy," he said, as he stirred the compound into a gory
paste, "you repeat after me, 'My foot is on my native heath, my
name it is McGregor.'" Sandy obeyed with solemnity, and, this
important ceremony over, Alan pronounced him a member of the Clan
in good and regular standing.

Then, by the Chief's orders, Jean, Jock, and Sandy, each in turn
placed their hands under Alan's hand, while they promised to obey
him without question in all matters perta