There the MacGregor's sleuth-hound paused and howled, where Colin's bonnet and the chanter, with which he had accompanied Oina's song, lay on the heather, and again he uttered a low prolonged howl on snuffing the odour that came from a patch of heath, the darkness of which might make one shudder. It was the crusted blood of the poor boy's death-wound which still lay there. "Callam, lead the dog across the stream," said Rob; "he must find the scent on the other side; let him but once snuff their footmarks, and then woe to the MacRaes!" MacAleister, the henchman, dragged the fierce dog, by its leash, across the stream. It was a bloodhound of the oldest and purest breed, being all of a deep tan colour with black spots, about two feet four inches high, with strong limbs, a wide chest, broad savage muzzle, and pendulous upper lip. Crossing the stream hand in hand, with their pistols in their teeth, to keep the flints and priming dry, the MacGregors reached the opposite bank, while the dog ran to and fro, till he suddenly uttered a growl. He had found a man's bonnet. "Paul Crubach was right--here is the badge of Seaforth!" said Greumoch MacGregor, tearing a tuft of deer's-grass from the bonnet, and trampling upon it with vindictive hate. "And there are the cattle-marks," added Rob Roy, who had been scrutinizing the grass and heath by the light of the moon; "cast loose the dog, Callam--the caterans can have gone up the glen but a little way yet." The henchman let slip the leash, and the hound, without hesitation, placed his nose near the grass, and, uttering from time to time low growls of satisfaction, proceeded up the glen at a trot, which gave Rob and his armed companions, active though they were, some trouble to keep pace with him. All traces of habitation were soon left behind, as the pursuers and their questing bloodhound penetrated among the dusky mountains, entering on a wild and silent region of sterile magnificence, above which towered the double cone of Ben More. On they went, through the lengthened expanse of a glen that lay between two chains of barren hills, at the base of which a river, rushing among fragments of detached rock, foaming over precipices and plunging into deep dark pools, swept onward to mingle its waters with the Dochart. The dog went forward unerringly. The hoof-marks of the hastily-driven cattle were occasionally seen among the ferns, the crushed leaves, the bruised stems and twigs of the wild bushes; but for a time these traces were lost when they entered on a great expanse of deep soft heather, broken only here and there by a pool of boggy water, which shone whitely in the light of the waning moon: it was a tract of vast extent, and all of a dun, dark hue.