tened time of his life. Probably only he,
Red Murdo, and a few others actually knew he was there, though he had
boasted that many did, and I should know no more than that I had been a
visitor to the Colonel's Bed. And yet I should probably know a good
deal more, for otherwise why was I there?

Anyhow, after the previous hour or two of tensity, it was a relief to
be face to face with my man, I able to read his, if I could, he able to
read mine. It was only in the grey half-light of his hole in the
rocks, but, at least, we should look each other in the eyes, as men
wish to do when they are acting honestly towards each other, even if
later they must fight.

You are quick, at a drawn moment, to seize the picture of a man, to
sound his being, and the Black Colonel, as he stood there courteously
attentive, intelligently alert, made a picture which vouchsafed a clear
personality. He would have been something ripely over thirty, but ten
years of adventure and philandering sat lightly on him, and he looked
even younger than he was. A dark man keeps the freshness of youth
well, until it begins to go in the greying of his hair, when it goes
quickly; while a fair man grows middle-aged soon, but fends off old age
well, or, at all events, the look of it.

The Black Colonel was dark entirely; dark of skin, or rather olive, as
you find men and women among a Celtic people; dark of eye to the point
of a scowl, behind which, however, there was a well of mirth; dark of
hair and dark of beard. His hair he wore long, not being always within
reach of scissors, and his beard had that silky texture which comes of
never having known a razor.

Once, as the story went, he asked Red Murdo, so-called for sundry
reasons besides his tousled red hair, to shave him with the sharp edge
of a dirk. The experiment began so ill that it never actually began at
all, and the Black Colonel had a virgin beard in which he took a due
conceit--why not? He thought it manly, where, perhaps he was right,
and he had learned in France that women thought it manly, so he was
doubly right.

The Celts, wherever found, are not generally tall, and the Black
Colonel was a pure Celt in body as well as in nature. He was
upstanding, bore himself easily, was clean in line and tough of frame.
True, he was long of the leg, among a people who, having to climb and
descend hills constantly, are, in the providence of fitness,
short-legged, but he was all of a part. The ki