t their
soup-kettle.

"Silly fools," he muttered to himself, "they do not know that the first
handful of heather and dried bracken they throw on their fire, will send
a skarrow to the sky that will warn every soul within twenty miles. If I
had not been a blind idiot, and thinking of something else, I should
have seen it long before I came so far."

And looking over his shoulder he saw to the right, to the left, and
behind him towards the cliffs seaward, multitudinous pulsing ruddy
camp-fire blooms, waking, waxing and falling, that told of a general
investment of their fastness, so long secure. In spite of the surprise,
however, Stair managed to meet Joseph and to warn him that nothing
further must be attempted except by means of Whitefoot. He introduced
the wise collie and made him give his two front paws to the confidential
servant in token of amity, while he repeated his name over and over
again--"Joseph! Joseph!"

"_Ao-ouch!_" whispered Whitefoot, as much as to say, "Of course I
understand! Do you think that I, Whitefoot Garland, am some silly puppy
gambolling through life?"

For Whitefoot was a grave dog and had had to do with many very serious
things indeed--things which touched even the life of his master. So it
is no wonder that at this time of day he rather resented pains being
taken with his education. It was like setting a double-first to construe
the first book of Caesar.

Stair returned to the Bothy with his heart heavy and many thoughts
churning within him. He reached the Wild safely with nothing worse to
report than the fact that he was fired upon by a sentry, which warned
him that he must not come that way too often. He did not enter directly
into the Bothy, where, as he knew, Julian Wemyss would be doing an
hour's reading before turning in. Instead he betook himself to the dam
which his brothers and the band had constructed at the close of the
autumnal peat-leading.

All the winter the _Sunk_ of Blairmore had been full of black moss
water. For the greater part of the cold weather it had been frozen and
snow-bound. But now, swollen with spring rains, the ditches of the
_Sunk_ were lipping to the overflow. Stair took the great iron gelleck
and with a blow or two knocked back the clutches of the flood-barriers.
Then flinging down the huge crow-bar, he fled for his life, the
ink-black water hissing and spurting at his heels. It was not noisy,
that water. It ran silently, almost oilily, but all the sa