The movements and exploits of Montrose now became rather a story of romance than of sober modern warfare. Argyll and Lord Elcho dogged his steps, but he advanced or disappeared, with his half-clad Irish and wild mountaineers, amongst the hills in a manner that defied arrest. At Tippermuir, in Perthshire, he defeated Elcho, took his guns and ammunition, and surprised and plundered the town of Perth. As was constantly the case, the Highlanders, once loaded with booty, slipped off to their homes; and, left alone with his Irish band, who were faithful because their way home was cut off, he retreated northward, in hope of joining the clan Gordon. Montrose found himself stopped at the Bridge of Dee by two thousand seven hundred Covenanters under Lord Balfour of Burleigh, but he managed to cross at a ford higher up, and, falling on their rear, threw them into a panic. They fled to Aberdeen, pursued by the Irish and Highlanders, and the whole mass of pursuers and pursued rushed wildly into the city together. The place was given up to plunder, and for three days Aberdeen became a scene of horror and revolting licence, as it had been from an attack of Montrose four years before, when fighting on the other side. The approach of Argyll compelled the pillagers to fly into Banffshire, and, following the banks of the Spey, he crossed the hills of Badenoch, and, after a series of wild adventures in Athol, Angus, and Forfar, he was met by the Covenanters at Fyvie Castle, and compelled to retreat into the mountains. His followers then took their leave of him, worn out with their rapid flights and incessant skirmishes, and he announced his intention of withdrawing for the winter into Badenoch.