A desperate plan occurred to him to carry the war into the enemy's country—to pick off single men and throttle them noiselessly in the heather. But there was danger in that. He was unarmed now, and some one might give the alarm and they would overcome him in the struggle. Stumbling on he looked about him for a river or a loch in which he could swim to safety, or some cleft in a rock where he could hope to meet his assailants single-handed.
But there was nothing in all that dreary maze of darkness, and with anger and despair in his heart he settled down to a long tireless trot, waiting to outwit them if he could.
It was about two hours later that the moon filtered thin shafts of grey light through the scurrying clouds, and in a twinkling the landscape showed dimly and Muckle John found himself at a narrow pass running between two hills with a precipice of rock reaching up hundreds of feet on either side. Then the moon disappeared and he set off at a great pace up the rocky track, knowing that here, if at all, there lay a way to safety. On each side was the smooth surface of rock. There was no place to take refuge, but who could tell what use might be made of such a place? He must have covered half a mile at a quick pace—all the quicker because he knew that those upon his heels, running barefoot, would be handicapped by the loose stones and jagged edges of rock—when he came out upon the open moorland again and on the breath of the wind he caught the smell of cattle. And at once he saw a way.
Again the moon trailed out upon the misty sky and with eager eyes Muckle John searched the vapour. A clump of shaggy dripping coats huddled in a sheltered place to his right, that was all, but it satisfied Muckle John, for very quickly, knowing that there was not a moment to lose, he drew near to them and running amongst them, with a great shout brought them lumbering and snorting wildly to their feet. A vast Highland bull bellowed in the driving mist, but seeing nothing stamped his feet and shook his horns uncertainly. Then unsheathing a small knife, Muckle John drove the blade into a heifer beside him and sent it at a gallop towards the pass. Running hither and thither, but always avoiding the bull, he kept them moving, moving, until the head of the narrow way was reached, and at that he drew back and halted for the moon.
It came again in all serenity, streaming on to the desolate place with a thin forlorn kind of light, making the shadow of Muckle John look very large and the clump of cattle, some fifty of them and their perplexed and irritated leader, look like the cattle of a dream.
The time was ripe. With a strange noise in his throat like the roar of a stag Muckle John dropped upon his hands and made towards them on all fours—a weird enough spectacle on a lonely moor and very unnerving under a hazed moon. It was the last straw to the agitated beasts packed at the head of the pass. For a moment the bull stood his ground, but his heart failed him, being a bull barely three years old, and losing his head he set the panic ablaze. It was helter-skelter down the gorge and Muckle John at the back of them with his naked knife in their flanks. Again and again his wild cry rose and fell, faster and faster they thundered on until nothing could have stopped them—least of all three Frasers caught just midway like rats in a trap. What happened can never be known in its grim detail. But the herd passed on, and the beat of their feet died down and was swallowed up in the silent night.
And after them Muckle John, scanning the ground behind them, treading leisurely down the moonlit pass. Suddenly he paused and shivered at what he saw. Then walking on he paused again, and once more about fifty yards away he bent his head, and this time he took up a flutter of blood-stained tartan and peered at it very closely.
Presently he grinned like a dog.
"Fraser," he said, "what brings Frasers so far from Lovat at such a time—except to carry a message at the end of a dirk? What will Lovat say when he waits for news of the killing of Muckle John and he waits in vain?"
He stared at the strip of tartan for a long time, and then setting it on a ledge of rock he cut it into three equal parts.