appointed hour whatever might befall.

Three hours before daybreak a party of fifty picked men assembled
at the castle, for this force was deemed to be ample. The two men
who had escaped from the attack on the previous day led the way
to the ravine, and there Red Roy became the guide and led the band
far up the hillside. Had it been possible they would have surrounded
the cave before daylight, but Roy said that it was so long since
he had first found the cave, that he could not lead them there
in the dark, but would need daylight to enable him to recognize
the surroundings. Even when daylight came he was for some time at
fault, but he at last pointed to a clump of bushes, growing on a
broken and precipitous face of rock, as the place where the cave
was situated.

Red Roy was right in his conjecture. Archie had once, when wandering
among the hills, shot at a wild cat and wounded it, and had followed
it to the cave to which it had fled, and seeing it an advantageous
place of concealment had, when he determined to harry the district
of the Kerrs, fixed upon it as the hiding place for his band. Deeming
it possible, however, that its existence might be known to others,
he always placed a sentry on watch; and on the approach of the Kerrs,
Cluny Campbell, who happened to be on guard, ran in and roused the
band with the news that the Kerrs were below. Archie immediately
crept out and reconnoitred them; from the bushes he could see that
his foes were for the present at fault. Sir John himself was standing
apart from the rest, with Red Roy, who was narrowly scrutinizing
the face of the cliff, and Archie guessed at once that they were
aware of the existence of the cavern, though at present they could
not determine the exact spot where it was situated. It was too late
to retreat now, for the face of the hill was too steep to climb
to its crest, and their retreat below was cut off by the Kerrs. He
therefore returned to the cave, leaving Cluny on guard.

"They are not sure as to the situation of the cave yet," he said,
"but they will find it. We can hold the mouth against them for any
time, but they might smoke us out, that is our real danger; or if
they fail in that, they may try starvation. Do half a dozen of you
take brands at once from the embers and explore all the windings
behind us; they are so narrow and low that hitherto we have not
deemed it worth while to examine them, but now they are really our
only hope; some of