“As you please, Mr Royde. The boys here and myself are not impressed by either name. However, I have no leisure to bandy words with you on the King’s highway. And now, boys, off we go. We have a long trek before us yet and we want to pitch our camp before the shades of night fall fast.”

If Chester had been a good intelligence officer he would have waited to see what direction Sydney Prew and his reinforcements took, for thus he would have made a valuable reconnaissance for the defenders of Glenbogle. However, with the figure of Constable MacGillivray to deter him from throwing Mr Prew into Loch Ness, he had only one way in which to relieve his feelings and that was to squeeze himself back into the Austin and drive on to Glenbogle as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, Mr Prew and eleven heavily-loaded young men trudged on toward the headquarters camp of the N.U.H. forces, which was situated in one of the corries of mighty Ben Booey. It had been dark for a good two hours when the reinforcements reached their destination.

“You’re very late, Mr Prew,” said the General Officer Commanding sternly.

“We may have missed the shortest route,” his Chief of Staff admitted. “Still, I expect we shall muddle through in the time-honoured way to victory.”

Percy Buckham drew himself up proudly.

“There has been no muddling through so far, Mr Prew. Yesterday afternoon we locked up Mr MacDonald of Ben Nevis in one of his own dungeons. A very brilliant little operation for a commencement.”

“Oh, huzza, Mr Buckham, huzza, huzza!” cried Mr Prew as loudly as the exertion of the climb a third of the way up Ben Booey would allow him.

“Yes, we snaffled him with a sack. I recognized him by his orange kilt.”

“Orange kilt?” Mr Prew echoed “That couldn’t have been MacDonald, Mr Buckham; that must have been somebody called Royde. I was parleying with him anon. An American, if one may judge by his accent. But what of it? As I said, we shall muddle through in the time-honoured way to victory.”

Half an hour later the Chief of Staff was summoned to the General’s tent to hear his plan of action. In ordinary circumstance a camp of over fifty male and female hikers would have been resounding with favourite choruses lustily shouted round the camp fire, but the leader had insisted that his force should remember it was on active service in hostile country and behave accordingly. Sentries had been posted; in the tents the lanterns were masked; the low murmur of conversation was audible only when drawing near to one of them.