"I was feared," said Rob, "Ephraim Macaulay was loosed and oh--Muckle John, I..." "No suspected me, surely?" he gasped. "I was feared, ye see, and..." But Muckle John shook his head, and fell into a soliloquy in Lowland Scots. "Oh, Rob, Rob," he said, "this is no pleasant hearing. It makes things difficult. I'm minded to leave ye, Rob, though I shrink frae doing so, for the country is fair hotching with spies and sic' like, and at this present moment, there's a wheen men with eyes fair glued to this spot, and all o' them just hungering for the dawn. It's a dangerous ploy ye're engaged upon, Rob, and one beside which Culloden was as snug as snaring rabbits," and he sighed again with his eyes up on the loch. "Rob," he broke out suddenly, "it's enough to mak' me die with shame when I say it, but it's Macaulay ye think I loosed. Come then, Rob, and follow me, and I swear on the naked dirk I'll show ye Macaulay," and sliding through the undergrowth, he beckoned back to him. In this manner taking advantage of every scrap of cover, they reached the wood where the mist was rising before the dawn. At this point Muckle John advanced very cautiously upon his hands and feet, and Rob marvelled at so large a man moving as softly as a cat. Of a sudden, however, he dropped upon his stomach and waggled his foot as a warning. For men's voices in muttered Gaelic came from behind a rock immediately to their right. "He cannot have left the shore, Angus," said one, "for Neil is watching the brae and we will close in on him at sunrise. Besides, he is only a boy." "There is a great man with him, Donald; who will he be?" "I am not knowing for sure, Angus, but belike he has taken to the heather like many another pretty fellow, though he looked like one ye know of, whose name I will not be mentioning. Whoever he is--he will not be meddling with us, Angus." "But where can the Captain have got to--he was watching Archie Cameron and then he disappeared, and Cameron too." With a backward look Muckle John stole on, and Rob and he passed into the heart of the wood and up to the hollow place where Macaulay had disappeared. There Muckle John straightened himself, and pushing aside the bracken at the lower end of the hollow he beckoned to Rob. "There," he said, "is your prisoner," and sure enough there lay the bound and silent form of Ephraim Macaulay. "But how did he get here?" asked Rob. "He could not have rolled." "Rob," replied Muckle John, "I will be franker with you than you have been with me. I brought him here mysel'." "You?" "And who else? But let that be. I have a notion that we must hurry," and he began to unloose the ropes about the prisoner's hands. Rob watched him without a word, too perplexed to speak. "Muckle John," he whispered at last, "could we no mak' use of his clothes?"