Things fell out like that, and I was bidden to rest in a Highland shieling, squat of form, thatched with rushes, floored with earth, and eat a bannock and drink a bowl of goat's milk, while my message went forward and an answer returned. Perhaps two hours passed, and I slept a little, for I was tired, before that answer did arrive by the eternal Red Murdo. To be sure, I would be made welcome by his master, but I must not feel offended if I was blindfolded during the walk to the Colonel's Bed. This request, courteously put by Red Murdo, showed me the situation I had invited for myself, but, having gone so far, I was not to turn back, and I said, "Very well." He tied a coarse tartan scarf of home-spun wool, which he wore himself, tightly round my eyes, so tightly that at first it hurt a little, and we started for our destination. We had a rough, difficult track, all up and down again, to follow, as my feet discovered, with no sight to guide them. But Red Murdo, a study in loyalty to his chief and in consideration for me, supported me sturdily, and I broke no shin on the many rocks strewing our road. I was wondering if we should ever arrive, when I heard the rush of a stream almost beneath us. Instinctively I stopped, as one does when an unseen danger is near, but Red Murdo said, "It's a' right; we're near there." Next I felt as if I were walking in a cave, for there was a peculiar hollow echo to our tread. Then the tartan scarf was removed from my eyes, and, opening them, I saw the Black Colonel holding out his hand. "Glad, Sir Visitor, to see you," he said, "and such hospitality as this poor place can offer is yours." I took his hand, without holding it, bowed stiffly, and sat myself on a chair made of birch branches, to which he pointed. It was, apart from an equally rude litter-bed and a rough table, the only furniture in the refuge. This I saw by the light of a fire of broken wood and peat which burned slowly in a corner, where, apparently, the smoke found some channel of escape, because it drifted slowly upward in spirals. My feeling had been right, for this was a cave, or, rather, a tunnel, worn in the course of centuries by the stream which had now deserted it, to flow lower down. Above us, as I judged, rose the side of a small hill, and immediately without there would be a sheer drop to the departed waters, whose noise soughed like a strong wind among pine trees. It was a retreat made by Nature in her chance moods, and used by the Black Colonel at that straitened time of his life. Probably only he, Red Murdo, and a few others actually knew he was there, though he had boasted that many did, and I should know no more than that I had been a visitor to the Colonel's Bed. And yet I should probably know a good deal more, for otherwise why was I there?