He had reached Kilcummin, where Fort Augustus now stands, at the head of Loch Ness, when he heard news which made him pause. In front Seaforth was barring the way with five thousand men, his own Mackenzies and others from the hardy northern shires. Behind him Argyll was coming up with all the Campbells he could muster and some Lowland levies hastily gathered to his aid. To meet these two armies Montrose had only his Irishmen, a handful of Airlie's troopers, and such of the Highlanders as had not yet made off with their plunder, barely fifteen hundred men in all. He made his choice in an instant. Only thirty miles off, down the road by which he had just ascended the valley, Argyll lay at Inverlochy three thousand strong. But that road was certain to be watched by Argyll's scouts, and this time Montrose was determined that his enemy should not escape him. There was another road by which the Campbells might be reached in flank at a point where no retreat was possible. It was a road rarely trodden even in summer by any foot save that of the deer or wolf, and now, when winter lay white on the mountains and the passes were choked with snow, shunned even by those wild travellers. But any road that led to his enemy was a good road for Montrose, and the dauntless spirit of their general beat high in the hearts of his men. Striking southward over the rugged shoulder of Corryarrick, through the bleak wastes of Glen Roy and Glen Spean, now wading waist high through the snow, and now clambering among the bare mountain peaks of that lonely land, by day and by night the little host held on its painful way. On the evening of February 1st, on the second day after leaving Kilcummin, they saw from the skirts of Ben Nevis the towers of Inverlochy and the moonlit waters of Loch Eil. The castle of Inverlochy stood, as all that is left of it still stands, at the juncture of Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe beneath the mighty shadow of Ben Nevis. The Campbells lay in the narrow strip of plain between the mountain and the shore. For them there was no escape if defeated; but unfortunately for his honour a way of escape lay open to their chief. His galley lay at her moorings on the lake, and in the middle of the night he was put secretly on board to await in ignominious security the chances of the day, leaving his people to fight for his name and their lives under his cousin Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck. He excused himself by an injury to his arm which disabled him from using a sword, an excuse that no other man then alive in Scotland would have ventured to plead in the face of his foe.