The barrel of his long gun looked over his shoulder. "Go on, Patsy," he said, "walk on up the burn as if you had seen nothing and I shall be with you in a moment." She had reached a little knoll, crowned with alder bushes, when she found him entering from the opposite side. Sitting down, she told him of the Duke's coming to Abbey Burnfoot, and of the two gentlemen who were with him, Captain Laurence and Lord Wargrove. "Ah," said Stair, "so it is for that we have a full squadron of dragoons camped in our barns at Glenanmays, the stable emptied of our own horses to make room for those of the dragoons, and the whole house turned upside down. I thought it was too big a force to be sent after the three of us." "Fergus and Agnew are still away, then?" queried Patsy, sure that they were. Stair grinned. "They are in the heather, like myself," he chuckled, "but neither of them has such a choice of hidie-holes as I have. I can hide better and lie closer, besides keeping a watch on the farm and on you, Miss Patsy, with the soldiers all about within the shot of a gun." "Can you bring Jean to me, Stair?" said Patsy, "it will be hard, I know, with all those men on the watch at Glenanmays." Stair flushed a little with the joy of a difficult commission. He whistled shrilly three times, and then sat quite still listening. Then he whistled thrice more and the echoes had hardly died away before the wise, towsy head of a rough collie with the big, brown eyes of the genuine Galloway sheep-dog peered out of the bracken and long grass of the burnside. He came silently and expectantly to his master, as if he enjoyed the game as much as any one. "Here, Whitefoot," said Stair, and the dog came obediently to his side. He wore on his neck a plain leather collar, which his master undid. In one place the inside leather was doubled but held tight when worn by Whitefoot, owing to the roughness of the dog's mane of hair. Stair pushed back the understrap, and taking a piece of paper from his waistcoat wrote upon it the figure "2" very large and clear. Then he shook a forefinger before Whitefoot's moist nose, and said with emphasis the single word "Jean." The dog lifted his forepaws a little clear of the ground, and, as it were, barked without noise, making an eager, half-strangled noise in his throat to show he understood. "Jean!" Stair repeated. "A-owch!" whispered the dog, his tail wagging violently and his eyes fairly blazing.