The bicycle, having passed him, wobbled on up the hill, shedding a fitful ray upon alternate sides of the road. Suddenly--raucous and stunning, but oh, how sweet!--rang out the voice of Dunshie's lifelong friend, Private Mucklewame. "Halt! Wha goes there!" The cyclist made no reply, but kept his devious course. Private Mucklewame, who liked to do things decently and in order, stepped heavily out of the hedge into the middle of the road, and repeated his question in a reproving voice. There was no answer. This was most irregular. According to the text of the spirited little dialogue in which Mucklewame had been recently rehearsed by his piquet commander, the man on the bicycle ought to have said "Friend!" This cue received, Mucklewame was prepared to continue. Without it he was gravelled. He tried once more. "Halt! Wha goes--" "On His Majesty's Service, my lad!" responded a hearty voice; and the postman, supplementing this information with a friendly good-night, wobbled up the hill and disappeared from sight. The punctilious Mucklewame was still glaring severely after this unseemly "gagger," when he became aware of footsteps upon the road. A pedestrian was plodding up the hill in the wake of the postman. He would stand no nonsense this time. "Halt!" he commanded. "Wha goes there?" "Hey, Jock," inquired a husky voice, "is that you?" This was another most irregular answer. Declining to be drawn into impromptu irrelevancies, Mucklewame stuck to his text. "Advance yin," he continued, "and give the coontersign, if any!" Private Dunshie drew nearer. "Jock," he inquired wistfully, "hae ye gotten a fag?" "Aye," replied Mucklewame, friendship getting the better of conscience. "Wull ye give a body yin?" "Aye. But ye canna smoke on ootpost duty," explained Mucklewame sternly. "Forbye, the officer has no been roond yet," he added. "Onyway," urged Dunshie eagerly, "let nae be your prisoner! Let me bide with the other boys in here ahint the dyke!" The hospitable Mucklewame agreed, and Scout Dunshie, overjoyed at the prospect of human companionship, promptly climbed over the low wall and attached himself, in the _rôle_ of languishing captive, to Number Two Sentry-Group of Number Three Piquet. III Meanwhile M'Snape had reached the forward edge of the wood, and was cautiously reconnoitring the open ground in front of him. The moon had disappeared altogether now, but M'Snape was able to calculate, by reason of the misdirected exuberance of the vigilant Mucklewame, the exact position of the sentry-group on the left-hand road. About the road on his right he was not so certain; so he set out cautiously towards it, keeping to the edge of the wood, and pausing every few yards to listen. There must be a sentry-group somewhere here, he calculated--say midway between the roads. He must walk warily.