The man in the cart laughed heartily. "He was more than a match for you," he replied. "That 'e was," agreed the soldier. "But 'ow anyone can get out of this fort beats me. Somebody will look foolish over this." "Be glad it is not you," returned the man in the cart. "Me?" cried the other, for they were now twenty yards down the road. "There'd be few rebels lost if I had a word in it." "I can see that," shouted back the man in the cart. And so they passed along the moorside, and out of sight of the fort. Half an hour later they encountered the soldiers returning. "Not got him?" asked the man in the cart. A sergeant stopped while the rest of them trudged on. "No; they left their horses and took to the crags." "Where are the dragoons?" "Led into a bog, and still there." Then, shaking his head, the soldier marched after his company. Long after Rob threw back the rugs, and sitting up blinked in the sunlight. "Well, Rob," said the man in the cart, but with little warmth of manner. It was Muckle John! CHAPTER XV "A MUIRFOWL SNARED" Now the man that Muckle John had sent speeding from the cave-mouth to the south reached northern Lochaber, and halting in a place under a rock, waited for the dawn. Very slowly the wintry night began to grow more grey. A cold wind fluttered the beard of the watcher under the rock. From the bleak hill-side a dog-fox barked, and with the passing of night a stag moved like a shadow up the brae and stood for a moment gazing backward, silhouetted against the skyline. And still the man waited, watching the track below him. It must have been about seven o'clock, and the sun barely risen, when down the glen came two men walking very rapidly and saying no word to one another. Foremost came a short, strongly built man with a round, genial countenance and shrewd blue eyes. About four paces behind again there limped and tottered a broken cadaverous figure, heavily cloaked and yet coughing dismally in the bleak Highland air, and leaning his weight upon a stick. All the way down the glen they never exchanged a word; but once the man who led the way halted, and drawing a flask from his pocket handed it to his companion, who tilted it up and then broke into a worse fit of coughing than before. The messenger of Muckle John snug under the crag took them in with one long, penetrating glance, but no expression of surprise or triumph or relief crossed his face. He regarded them, as he had regarded the stag, with cold, inscrutable eyes.