When the fire was burning well he produced a bundle wrapped in a red cloth, a handkerchief perhaps, from his pocket. He unfolded the bundle and when he had made a sharp point on a birch branch he speared the contents of his bundle on this stake and held whatever he was cooking in the flame of the fire. Very soon the savour of burning meat came to my nostrils and in a little while they were eating ravenously. My own hunger rose as I watched them and smelled their food. I could hear Terry whispering:

‘Hugh! Hugh!’

I retreated to the cave. We stayed the worst pangs of our hunger with scraps of grouse while I told her what I saw.

‘We must get food or starve,’ I said.

‘Can’t we light a fire?’ she asked. She was shuddering with cold.

‘You should go to bed and keep yourself warm there,’ I advised her.

‘I can’t go to bed,’ she broke out. ‘Oh! I wish I could get warm!’

While the two men were eating the noise of sheep continued without seeming to come any nearer. I looked through the glass from the mouth of our cave. I could see the sheep plainly at the far end of Loch Coulter; they were huddled in a mass while dogs, whose yelping we heard occasionally, ran in circles round the flock. I saw a group of men seated to the left of the sheep, and I fancied I saw a thin spire of smoke rising from amongst them. One man stood alone by himself, away from his companions to the right of the sheep, outlined on a hillock as if he were standing sentinel there.

‘Can you see anything?’ Terry whispered. ‘Give me the glass.’

I gave her the glass without a word. She stared through it for a long time.

‘What does it mean?’ she asked at length. ‘What men are these?’

‘It means we might have been less scrupulous about taking a sheep,’ I answered. ‘It means mischief.’

Half an hour later the crowd of men began to rise from sitting amongst the heather; they dispersed: some went behind the sheep, others came in front, the flock moved slowly west. I ventured to look down into the gully. The two men there had risen. They were standing together and he with the binoculars gazed backwards at the sheep. He spoke to his companion who scattered the fire and stamped its embers into the ground. Then they walked up the valley and shortly disappeared.

The sheep approached. Their bleating resounded amongst the cliffs. With yelping dogs hurrying them, and half a dozen armed desperadoes leading them and following them, they passed beneath us, following these two, their apparent vanguard, into the west. The cave was bitterly cold. We were famished with hunger and racked with fears. We could scarcely restrain ourselves from lighting a fire until the sheep were out of sight. Then I took the water-pail.