ufficiently rough journey of close on eight miles; and
now, as they came to the bed of a little burn, Lionel was bidden to
descend from his venerable steed; the saddle was taken off; and old
Maggie was hobbled, and left to occupy herself with the fresh, sweet
grass growing near to the stream.

"Now look here, Roderick," Lionel said, "I'm entirely in your hands, and
mind you don't spare me. Since I'm in for it, I mean to see it through."

"When it is after a stag we are, there is no sparing of any one," said
Roderick, significantly, as he took out his telescope. "And you will
think of this, sir, that if we are crahling along, and come on the deer
without expecting it, and if they see you, then you will lie still like
a stone. Many's the time they will chist stand and look at you, if you
do not move; and then slowly, slowly you will put your head down in the
heather again, and wait till I tell you what to do. But if you go out of
sight quick--ay, so will they."

At first, as it appeared to Lionel, they went forward with a dangerous
fearlessness, the keeper merely using his natural eye-sight to search
the slopes and corries; but presently he began to go more warily; again
and again he paused, to watch the motion of the white rags of cloud
clinging to the hillsides; and occasionally, as they got up into the
higher country, he would lie down with his back on a convenient mound,
cross one knee over the other, and, with this rest for his telescope,
proceed to scrutinize, inch by inch, the vast prospect before him. There
was no more talking now. There was a kind of stealthiness in their
progress, even when they walked erect; but it soon appeared to Lionel
that Roderick, who went first, seemed to be keeping a series of natural
eminences between them and a certain distant tract of this silent and
lonely land. It was only a guess; but it accounted for all kinds of
circuitous little turns; anyhow, there was nothing for him but to follow
blindly whither he was led. Of course he kept his eyes open; but there
was no sign of life anywhere in this barren wilderness; there was
nothing but the empty undulations of heath and thick grass, with
sometimes a little tarn coming in sight, and always the farther hills
forming a sort of solitary amphitheatre along the horizon.

Suddenly Roderick stopped short, and quietly put out his hand to arrest
the progress of his companions. Involuntarily they stooped; and he not
only did likewise, but pre