effortless ease till she crowned the causeway of seaworn rock and plunged to the armpits into the tall heather of the Wild of Blairmore.

Then Diarmid lost sight of the girl for a minute, but when he saw her again she was far out on the perilous goat-track which led down to the bothy itself. Diarmid scanned the distance with his eye—he knew the length of time it would have taken a hillsman to go from point to point.

"That girl is a miracle," he muttered to himself, "she can run through deep heather as fast as on the sand of the seashore."

He was wrong, however. She was only a Pictess, with some thousand years of the heather instinct in her blood. Her body was lithe and supple, her foot light, and her eye sure. Besides, she could hear what was hidden and unheard at the stile on which Diarmid stood, the rock-rock of the short, steady navy stroke, which was pulling the landing-party from His Majesty's ship Britomart nearer and nearer to the Bothy of Blairmore.

Then she passed quite out of sight. She had a long descent before her, sheltered seaward, so that she did not need to consider the danger of being seen by the enemy. The leather of her sandals pattered like rain on dry leaves on the narrow, twisted sheep-tracks, then mounted springily over the bulls'-fell of the knolls of stunted heather, and as it were in the clapping of a pair of hands, she appeared at the door of the Bothy of Blairmore, scarce heated, quite unbreathed, but with grave face and anxious eyes.

"Scatter!" she commanded, clapping her hands. "Off with you, lads! Take to the hills. The press-gang is landing at this moment at the Abbey Burnfoot to cut you off. Eben McClure is with them. He has heard of your cargo-running and he wants to send you all to the wars."

"And what will you do?" said Stair, who was always the boldest in speech as he was the most reckless in action.

"I—oh, pray don't give yourself the least trouble about me, Stair Garland. I shall stay here and wash the dishes."

The lads were declaring that under no circumstances should she remain where she was, but Patsy had made up her mind. She must see what a press-gang was like. She would see and speak with the officers who were at the head of it. Perhaps they had their side to it also, which would be worth the finding out. And the spy—she had never seen a spy, a marker-down of men—so she resolved to see this Eben McClure, the most hated man in 

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