Part 6 (1/2)

”It's just the place for a water cow, or a horse maybe,” Jean whispered to Alan.

”s.h.!.+” was Alan's only reply. He seized Jean's hand and dragged hear down behind a rock and pointed toward the south. There, coming out of the woods, was a beautiful stag. It poised its n.o.ble head, and sniffed the air, as if it suspected there might be human beings about, and then stepped daintily to the lake-sh.o.r.e and bent to drink. Its lips had scarcely touched the water when the children were startled by the loud report of a gun.

”Poachers,” gasped Jean, hiding her face and wis.h.i.+ng they had never come. ”Oh, where are Jock and Sandy?” Her only thought was to make herself as small as possible and keep out of sight behind the rocks, but Alan peered through the screen of bushes which hid the rock and made violent gestures to Jean to make her look, too.

Jean crawled on her hands and knees to Alan's side, and when she looked, what she saw made her so angry that she would have sprung to her feet if Alan had not held her down with a fierce grip. The stag was lying by the lake-sh.o.r.e, and a man with the muzzle of his gun still smoking was running toward it from the woods. The man was Angus Niel!

Jean was so astonished that for an instant she could not believe her own eyes. The two children flattened themselves out on their stomachs and watched him pull a boat from its hiding-place among some bushes on the sh.o.r.e, paddle quietly to the spot where the dead stag lay, and load it swiftly into the boat. Then he raced back to the woods again and reappeared, carrying a string of dead rabbits. These also he crowded into the boat, and then, taking up the oars, rowed across the lake to a landing-place on the other side. The children watched him, scarcely breathing in their excitement, until he had unloaded his game from the boat and disappeared into the woods, dragging the body of the stag after him. In a few moments he came back for the rabbits and, having disposed of them in the same mysterious way, returned to the boat.

Then Jean exploded in a fierce whisper. ”The old thief!” she said, shaking her fist after him. ”He's the poacher himself!

That's why he never brings any one before the bailie, though he's always telling about catching them at it! And he making such a fuss because Jock chased the rabbit that was eating up our garden! Oh, oh, oh!”

She clutched Alan and shook him in her boiling indignation. Alan laughed and shook her back. ”I didn't do it, you little spitfire!” he whispered, and Jean moaned, ”Oh, I know it, Alan, but I can't catch him and I'm so angry I've just got to do something to somebody.”

”Do you know what that old thief does?” said Alan. ”He sends that game down to the city--to Glasgow, or Edinburgh, or even London, maybe--and gets a lot of money for it! No wonder he tells big stories to make people afraid to go into the woods.”

”I hope he won't meet the boys,” moaned Jean. ”Jock would be sure to let his tongue loose, and then maybe he'd shoot him too!”

”Listen,” said Alan. He gave the pewit's call and waited. It was answered from a point so near that they were startled. They looked in every direction but saw nothing of the boys.

”Maybe it was a real pewit after all,” whispered Jean, but just then a tiny pebble struck Alan's cap, and, looking around in the direction from which it came, he saw two freckled faces rise up from behind the rock on the opposite side of the spring.

”There they are,” he said, punching Jean and pointing; ”they came up the other side of the burn.” Then, making a cup of his hands, he called across the stream, ”Did you see him?” The boys nodded.

”Slip back as fast as you can down that side of the burn,” Alan said, ”and we'll meet at the fall. Wait at the foot if you get there first. We've got something to show you. Whist, and be quick, for he'll be coming back before long, and this way like as not.”

Jock and Sandy nodded and disappeared, and Alan and Jean, springing from their hiding-place, hurried as fast as they could down their side of the stream to the trysting-place.

VII. THE CLAN

When Jean and Alan reached the waterfall, they found Jock and Sandy there before them. ”Come over to our side,” Alan called. The two boys ran further down stream and crossed the brook on stones which stood out of the water, and in a moment more were back again at the foot of the fall.

”What have you got to show us?” demanded Jock. ”I hope it's something to eat.” Jock had bitterly regretted his morning decision to find his food in the forest. The scone which Sandy had brought from home had been divided and eaten long ago; and all four of the children were now so hungry that they could think of nothing else, not even of Angus Niel and their adventures by the lake.

Alan looked cautiously around in every direction. ”Follow me, and keep quiet tongues in your heads,” he said. Then he disappeared under the fall, and Jean instantly followed him. For a moment Jock and Sandy were as mystified as Jean had been when Alan first found the secret stairway, but it was not long before they, too, saw the hole in the rock, plunged in and, following the winding pa.s.sage-way, came out upon the top of the rock.

”There,” said Alan, beaming with pride, as he displayed his wonderful lair, ”doesn't this beat Robinson Crusoe all to pieces?

If he had found a place like this on his desert island, he wouldn't have had to build a stockade or anything.”

”It's one of the very caves where Rob Roy hid! I'm sure of it,”

Jock declared with conviction, and Sandy was so overcome with admiration that he turned a back somersault and almost upset Jean, who was coming out of the cave with the basket on her arm.

”You see,” said Alan, ”we could stay here a week if we had food enough, and never come down at all. All we'd have to do for water would be to hold a pan under the edge of the fall. There's no way of getting up here except by the secret stair, and that's not easy to find. There never was such a place for fun.”

Sandy had righted himself by this time and was gazing ecstatically at the basket, which Jean had begun to unpack.

”Los.h.!.+” he cried. ”Look, Jock! Bacon and eggs and scones! Oh, my word!” Jock gave one look and whooped for joy.

”Keep still,” said Alan. ”Angus may be coming back this way, and he has a gun with him. We're safe enough up here, if we keep quiet, but if you go howling around like that, he'll surely hunt for the noise.”