"You would tell him I emptied your gun because you threatened me with it!"
"You were going off with my bag!"
"Because I undertook to carry your bag, was I bound to endure your company?"
"Alister!" said a quiet voice out of the darkness.
The highlander started, and in a tone strangely tremulous, yet with a kind of triumph in it, answered—
"Ian!"
The one word said, he stood still, but as in the act to run, staring into the darkness. The next moment he flung down the game-bag, and two men were in each other's arms.
"Where are you from, Ian?" said the chief at length, in a voice broken with gladness.
All Valentine understood of the question, for it was in Gaelic, was its emotion, and he scorned a fellow to show the least sign of breaking down.
"Straight from Moscow," answered the new-comer. "How is our mother?"