And then, just as they were climbing up the bank, a tall man pointed to a faint wisp of smoke to the southeast. “Another shieling,” he announced happily.
It was no shieling at all, of course. It was Alex’s fire, and now Kelpie’s curse would be well and truly fulfilled. Why hadn’t she thought of telling them herself? And why was it that she felt more dismay than elation? Frowning, she probed at the feeling, trying to figure it out. Och, of course; It was not for Alex’s sake she did not want him caught, but for her own. For he would be sure to tell them that she was no Campbell at all but a gypsy lass, and then they would take her straight to Argyll. She bit her lip as she silently followed the Campbells up the Cour in the direction of the telltale smoke, hoping passionately that Alex would either get away or be killed before he could betray her.
He nearly did get away. The cave, when they finally found it, was empty, the fire quenched with snow. The tangled footprints in the snow seemed to lead nowhere, and they might have given up but for the stubbornness of Hamish, the stout man. But at last someone saw Alex hiding high up amid the dark needles of a pine tree.
“A MacDonald!” Hamish peered upward. “Come away down, now, or we’ll shoot you there.”
“And what difference?” asked Alex mockingly from his high perch. “I’d as lief be shot here as on the ground.”
Kelpie set her teeth. She hoped they’d shoot him now, before he could see her and speak against her. She did! But again Hamish had other ideas. What was a MacDonald doing here at all, he wanted to know, and one, moreover, who was clearly well educated and therefore at least the son of a chieftain? It was a thing out of the ordinary and had better have the attention of his own chieftain, Campbell of Auchinbreck.
“We’re no for shooting you now,” he announced, “but will be taking you prisoner.”
Alex seemed to think it over for a moment. Then he laughed. “’Twill be a braw task for you, then,” he observed, “for I’ve a sore hurt ankle and can no longer set it to the ground—or else you’d not have found me here, whatever. Are you wanting to carry me all that way? For if not, you may as well shoot me here.”
This last clearly appealed to most of the Campbells, but Hamish stuck out his jaw. “Aye, then. Finlay and Angus will carry you,” he announced, to the displeasure of two of his men.
Alex shrugged and came down, leaning for an instant against the trunk of the tree as he reached the ground. His face was cool, although his ankle must be hurting him badly. But his lips tightened slightly when he saw Kelpie, and he stood for an instant, fixing her with another of those long, penetrating looks. There was more than mockery in it now. Kelpie flinched from it, and it came to her that Alex thought she had brought the Campbells to find him.