The duke's rental was principally payable in kind. Thus Killearn had established large granaries for storing up corn, meal, butter, cheese, &c., at a place called Moulin and elsewhere, which he deemed secure. Yet at all these storehouses Rob Roy appeared regularly, when least expected, and demanded supplies of grain, meal, or cheese for the use of his family, his followers, or for the poor people of the district, who were all devoted to him, for he was deemed the friend and father, protector and champion, of all who were necessitous, unfortunate, or oppressed. For the quantities thus taken he regularly gave signed receipts, which stated that he took these goods as a return in some part for the property of which the duke had so unjustly deprived him; and at times he frequently compelled the Montrose tenantry to convey the goods thus appropriated to his house at Portnellan, or wherever they were required. In his desperation, Montrose resolved to attempt the capture of Rob in person, and applied to the Privy Council for authority to raise a body of horse and foot militia among his own dependants, supposing probably that they would be better suited to a warfare among the mountains than the troops of the line. It is said that the duke had such a dread of the greater or more active enmity of Rob Roy that, singularly enough, "_his name_ was intentionally omitted, and the act was expressed in general terms, as being one to repress sorners, robbers, and broken men--to raise the hue-and-cry after them, to recover goods stolen by them, and to seize their persons." In consequence of the state of society which then existed in the Highlands, where the people dwelt in tribes or communities and in sequestered glens, which were separated by great mountain ridges, by pathless forests, while deep defiles or narrow passes formed the only access to the country, sudden raids and onslaughts, if vigorously conducted, could be easily made, with great peril, however, and with certain subsequent vengeance. The two bodies of horse and foot now mustered and armed by Montrose were composed of men entirely devoted to him, and more or less antagonistic to the MacGregors, at whose hands they had all suffered severely. They wore the duke's livery--blue coats faced with red, with trews of the Grahame tartan, and each wore in his bonnet a laurel leaf. There was not a man among them but had something to revenge, in the shape of a farm burned, a kinsman slain, or a herd carried off; so the measures now put in force against him compelled Rob Roy to be more than ever wary, for although hitherto most fortunate in all his achievements and escapes, he could not hope to be always so. Selecting a time when many of the MacGregors were absent at distant fairs, on a dusky evening in the November of 1717, it was resolved to beat up Rob's quarters.