a back-gate to go out at or a
barge to sail off in."

"I could correct you on that point in a little affair of arms as between
gentlemen--if the time and place were more suitable," said M'Iver,
warmly.

"Let your chief defend himself, friend," said MacDonald. "Man, I'll
wager we never see the colour of his face when it comes to close
quarters."

"I wouldn't wonder," I ventured. "He is in no great trim for fighting,
for his arm is----"

Sir Alasdair gave a gesture of contempt and cried, "Faugh! we've heard
of the raxed arm: he took care when he was making his tale that he never
made it a raxed leg."

Montrose edged up at this, with a red face and a somewhat annoyed
expression. He put his gloved hand lightly on MacDonald's shoulder and
chided him for debate with a prisoner of war.

"Let our friends be, Alasdair," he said, quietly. "They are, in a way,
our guests: they would perhaps be more welcome if their tartan was a
different hue, but in any case we must not be insulting them. Doubtless
they have their own ideas of his lordship of Argile----"

"I never ask to serve a nobler or a more generous chief," said M'Iver,
firmly.

"I would expect no other sentiment from a gentleman of Argile's clan.
He has ever done honestly enough by his own people. But have we not had
enough of this? We are wasting our wind that should be more precious,
considering the toils before us."

We found the descent of Corryarick even more ill than its climbing.
The wind from the east had driven the snow into the mouth of it like a
wedge. The horses, stepping ahead, more than once slipped into drifts
that rose to their necks. Then they became wild with terror, dashed
with frantic hooves into deeper trouble, or ran back, quivering in every
sinew and snorting with affright till the troopers behove to dismount
and lead them. When we in the van reached the foot of the come we looked
back on a spectacle that fills me with new wonder to this day when I
think of it,--a stream of black specks in the distance dropping, as
it were, down the sheer face of white; nearer, the broken bands of
different clansmen winding noiselessly and painfully among the drifts,
their kilts pinned between their thighs, their plaids crossed on their
chests--all their weapons a weariness to them.

In the afternoon the snow ceased to fall, but the dusk came on early
notwithstanding, for the sky was blotted over with driving clouds.

At the head of Glen Roy the MacDonal