reappear at Cairn Ferris,
whither Julian had been careful to send an inquiry.

Such conduct, however, did not seriously disquiet anybody, for Patsy's
ways were too erratic and the country too safe (so long, at least, as
she kept to the Ferris properties) for any one to harbour serious fears
about her.

And, indeed, there was no cause. Patsy had no idea of going off her
father's lands. She had simply taken a scamper over the Rig of
Blairmore, keeping to the deeper cover of the hollows till she came to
the nook that sheltered the bothy. Here she glanced within, but all was
empty, swept and garnished. There was no sign about the place of any
recent occupation.

All was trim and well-kept as she had left it--dust being unknown on the
Wild of Blairmore. But in the little hiding-place which ordinarily held
the key, a small rock-cupboard beneath a couple of great boulders,
fallen thwart-wise across one another like drunken men embracing, she
found a strip of twisted paper. Patsy thought that it contained a
message from Jean, but in a moment she recognized the aggressive
penmanship of Stair Garland.

_"If you want me, stand five minutes on Peden's Stone!"_

That was all, but Patsy knew that Stair had all the time been watching
over her in some wild, sudden-swooping, peregrine falcon-fashion of his
own. He had left the warning if she should happen to visit the Bothy
while it was being watched for the return of the young men whom the
"press" had missed on the day of Patsy's wild race in the yellow
sandals.

Now, save that it might pleasure the boy, Patsy had no special reason
for wishing to see Stair Garland. But it would certainly be well for her
to talk with his sister Jean. She wished to do this without going to the
farm itself. Her absence from her uncle would soon be noticed, and as
she had not appeared at her father's house of Cairn Ferris, it was to
Glenanmays that any searchers would go first. She was therefore wishful
to speak to Jean and ask her opinion of the visitors who had taken
possession of her uncle's house at the Burnfoot.

So with circumspection she crossed the pebbly bed of the Mays Water and
climbed up into a crater-like amphitheatre from the edge of which a flat
block of stone jutted out. It was told in the "persecuting" lore of the
parish that the great "Peden the Prophet" had often used it as a pulpit,
his congregation being seated round the semi-circle and the Mays Water
birling and singing handi