“The big hart or stag. You’ll never have a finer head if you live as long as Methuselah. Well, I’m glad something warned me to give Knocknacolly a miss to-day. Mind you, I never hoped that at your very first stalk you really would have a chance at the muckle hart of Ben Glass, but there you are, beginners’ luck, as they say. We’re going to have a stiffish stalk, but if you can get a fair shot at him before dusk this is going to be a day you’ll never forget.”

“Before dusk?” Royde echoed in accents that verged on consternation. “We surely aren’t going to crawl along on our faces like this for another ten hours?”

“Not all the time,” Ben Nevis replied encouragingly. “But we have to take advantage of all the cover we can to cross this flat. I don’t know whether Duncan proposes to get round to the corrie between Kincanny and Ardoo and climb up Ardoo …”

“I told you just now, Ben Nevis, I’ll do anything you like,” Royde interrupted with a touch of fretfulness, for a fat gnat had just stung his left eyelid with lustful savagery, and it was swelling rapidly. “You needn’t keep saying, ‘Ah, do!”

Ben Nevis laughed boisterously until he was glared at by Duncan, who shook his head in reproof of such noise.

“You’ll please to remember, Ben Nevis, that the less noise you are making the nearer we may happen to come to himself.”

“Yes, I apologize, Duncan. I’m setting Mr Royde a very bad example.” Ben Nevis turned to his guest. “The old man’s quite right to remind me not to make too much noise, but I couldn’t help being tickled by your thinking I was saying ‘Ah, do’ when I was saying ‘Ardoo.’“

“What’s the difference?”

“Ardoo—A-R-D D-U-B-H—means black height. You see those black precipices?”

“And we’re scheduled to climb up them?”

“Oh, there are other ways up which offer no problem to the man with a steady head. But Duncan may prefer to make a wider detour and scramble up to the end of Drumstickit—that’s the ridge on the other side of which himself is lying down just now. Which side are we going to approach him from, Duncan?”

The old stalker looked at the sky.

“There’s no wind. It makes no difference for the wind. He won’t get the scent of us one side more than another. I think the rain will begin about eleven o’clock, and when it does it will rain hard, right enough. That will make the climb up by the Ard Dubh a little difficult the way the water will be streaming down.”

“You think we ought to go round and take the long crawl along Drumstickit?” Ben Nevis asked.