Surmounting the ridge, he wormed his way along the sky-line with caution, till, getting his back into a perpendicular cleft down the side of the mountain, he cautiously descended, making no halt until he paused in the shadow of the precipice at the foot of the perilous stairway. A plain surface of benty turf lay before him, bright in the moonlight, dangerous to cross, upon which a few sheep came and went. A little burn from the crevice of the rocks, through which he had descended, cut the green surface irregularly. Into this the daring searcher for hidden treasure descended, and prone on his face pushed his way along, hardly a pennon of heather or a spray of red sorrel swaying with his stealthy passage. At the end of the grassy level the little burn fell suddenly with a ringing sound into a basin of pure white granite--a drinking-cup with a yard-wide edge of daintiest silver sand. The young man made his way hastily across the water to a little bower beneath the western bank, overhung with birch and fern, half islanded by the swift rush of the mountain streamlet. Here a tiny circle of stones lay on the sand. Hugh Kennedy stooped to examine their position with the most scrupulous care. Five black at intervals, and a white one to the north with a bit of ribbon under it. "That means," he said, "that the whole crew are out, and they are expecting a cargo from the south. The white stone to the north and the bit ribbon--Flora is waiting, then, at the Seggy Goats." He strained his eyes forward, but they could see nothing. Far away to the south he heard voices, and a gun cracked. "I'm well off the ridge," he muttered; "they could have marked me down like a foumart as I ran. They'll be fetching a cargo up from the Brig o' Cree," he added, "and it'll be all Snug at the 'Back o' Beyont' before the morning." He listened again, and laughed low to himself, the pleased laugh a lover laughs when things are speeding well with him. "Maybe," said he, "Roy Campbell may miss something from the 'Back o' Beyont' the morrow's morn, that a score of casks of Isle of Man brandy will not make up for." So saying, he took his way back through the low, overgrown cavity of the runnel. When he was midway he heard a step coming across the heath, brushing through the "gall"[8] bushes, splashing through the shallow pools. A foot heavily booted crashed through the half-concealed tunnel, not six inches from where the young man lay, a gun was discharged, evidently by the sudden jerk upon the earth, and the air was rent above him by a perfect tornado of vigorous Gaelic--a good language, as has been said, for preaching or swearing. [Footnote 8: The bog-myrtle is locally called "gall" bushes. It is the most characteristic and delightful of Galloway scents.] "That's Roy himsel'!" said the young man. "It's a strange chance when a Kennedy comes near to getting his brains knocked out on his own land by the heel of an outlaw Highlander."