ther had dipped their fingers pretty deeply in the
traffic. There were caves and hiding-places, which it would be death to
search except with a company of sappers. And more than that, he would
have to stay behind alone and face the back-stroke. He could not always
ride out with the helmets of the dragoons making a hedge about him.

Now McClure was a clever man, and he had been with the soldiers that day
when Whitefoot, questing for Jean, had entered the kitchen of the farm
of Glenanmays. He had wondered at the persistency with which the dog had
followed the girl. At first he had waited to see her give him something
to eat from the debris of the meal which was being prepared for the
soldiers.

But after Whitefoot had twice sniffed at the alms tossed him without
touching the gift, still continuing to follow Jean, now tugging at her
apron-string and now licking her hand, McClure, a man of the country,
began to suspect that the dog was a messenger from one of the lost
Garland boys whom they had missed so narrowly the other day in the
heather of the Wild of Blairmore.

So upon Jean's departure he stepped quietly to the door and noted that
she took the way down the valley towards the shore. He had not thought
much about it at the time, for at the moment all chasings of smugglers
and expeditions in aid of the manning of the fleet were absolutely at a
standstill. The Duke's arrival on the _Britomart_ by way of Stranryan
had mobilized all the forces of order, as escorts of safety or guards of
honour. So there would be no more raids till His Royal Highness was safe
across the Water of Nith.

There remained to McClure the alternative of following Jean on his own
responsibility, but the Stonykirker had far too great a respect for his
skin to search a valley bristling like a thousand hedgehogs with all
manner of thorn and gorse bushes, waved over with broom and darkened
with undergrowth, any single clump of which might conceal half-a-dozen
rifles, each with the eye of a sharpshooter behind it--a mere spark in
the sheltering dusk, but quite enough to frighten most men in his
position.

So, though strongly suspected, Jean sped on her way unopposed. McClure
put the incident away in the pigeon-holes of his memory. It might be
useful some day. He thought deeply upon the affair which now delayed
Royalty and, incidentally, was stopping his business. If he could put
the son of the King under a great obligation--he might at one stroke