There was indeed some excuse for her rapture. The cave was dry and airy. The view on either side of the hump of stone that marked the entrance was superb, looking down into Glenbristle and away across Glenbogle to the three mighty Sisters—Ben Booey, Ben Gorm and Ben Glass. While the two young women were extolling it, the husband of one and brother of the other was about half way across the dreary flat of Achnacallach. Not the most powerful telescope would have revealed him, for between him and the view commanded by the cave lay the ridge of Drumstickit about five miles away as the crow flies, but very many more as Chester Royde was crawling. Soon the rain sloping across Glenbogle in great ladders dark as crape obliterated the view, and the two young women turned to the more cheerful sight the interior of the cave presented. The occupants had had time to make divans of dry heather on which they had spread their sleeping-blankets. A convenient venthole at the back of the cave allowed a turf fire to shed a friendly glow of warmth without stifling the inmates. Carrie noticed that the poet’s notebook was lying open on his bed. Through the unromantic mind of Myrtle danced a butterfly thought that life in a cave like this with so personable a caveman would be very good. And what mattered the rain without when this cave was lighted within by the radiant tartans of Clan Macmillan and Clan Buchanan?

“It’s such a very lovely surprise to find you still here, Mr Buchanan,” Carrie exclaimed.

“I wrenched my ankle like a clown and had to stay here, but I’ll be able to get along to the bottom of the glen tomorrow if I take it quietly. And then we’ll catch the bus to Fort William. The trouble is we’ve eaten ourselves clean out of food. Did Alan tell you?”

“Fortunately Myrtle and I have brought you enough food to last you till to-morrow. It’s mostly sandwiches but there’s some tea and some cake and fourteen hard-boiled eggs, so it’ll keep you from starving. You can leave the basket in the cave and we’ll fetch it away sometime.”

“It’s awful kind of you, Mistress Royde. We’re awfully obliged to you. We really are.”

“And now I want to talk to you about a little matter of business,” Carrie began.

Once again James Buchanan experienced that sinking feeling, due not to shortage of victuals but to the dread that he was going to hear the hundred-dollar bill had been a mistake.

“Yes,” Carrie went on, “I want you to act for me in a business matter.”

James Buchanan gazed at her in something like stupefaction.