The fat dragoon laughed. The idea of packing up ammunition for the croppies in the temporary barrack of a squadron of dragoons, and using His Majesty’s straw to stuff the sacks, appealed to him as extremely comic. Hope and Neal shouldered their bundles and left the yard. “I’m afraid,” said Hope, “that we can’t store these in Matier’s house. When Barber learns that the cases are gone he’ll search high and low for them, and Matier’s will be just one of the places he’ll look sooner or later. Are you good for a tramp, Neal, with that load on your back?” “Yes,” said Neal, “I’ll carry mine for miles if you like.” “Then,” said Hope-, “we’ll just look in at Matier’s as we pass, and if the coast’s clear I’ll leave word where we’re going. I know a snug place on the side of the Cave Hill where we can lie for the night. To-morrow you can join your uncle at Donegore.” There were no soldiers round the inn when they reached it. Felix Matier and Donald Ward were both out. Hope left his message with Peg Macllrea, who was sanding the parlour. “So you’re going to sleep out the night on the Cave Hill?” she said to Neal. “That’ll be queer and good for your clouted head I’m thinkin’.” “It’ll do my head no harm,” said Neal. “You know well enough, Peg, that there never was much the matter with it.” They shouldered their loads again, walked up the street, and then, quickening their pace, tramped along the Shore Road for about three miles. “Now,” said Hope, “turn to the left up that loaning, and we’ll strike for the hill.” They crossed the fields round the homesteads which lay between the hill and the road, reached uncultivated and stony ground, and then commenced their climb. Neal was strong, active, and accustomed to fatigue, but he began to feel the weight of his sack of cartridge cases before he had climbed five hundred feet. When Hope bade him halt he was glad enough to lie panting on the springy heather. “We’re safe now,” said Hope, “but we’ve got further to go before night. We must make the place I named so that the men will be able to find me and the cartridges to-morrow morn.” Neal, ashamed of his weariness, bade Hope lead on. “I might have trysted with them for Mac Art’s Fort,” said Hope. “It was there that Neilson and Tone and M’Cracken swore the oath. That would have been a brave romantic spot for you and me to spend the night. We might have thought of great things there with the stars over us and nothing else between us and God’s heaven. But it’s a draughty place, lad.” The laughter came into his eyes as he spoke. “A draughty place and a stony, like Luz, where Jacob lay, and maybe the angels wouldn’t come near the likes of us. The place I have in my mind is warmer.” They reached it at last--a little heathery hollow, lying under the shelter of great rocks.