For an hour after Joanne had gone into her tent Aldous sat silent and watchful.

From where he had concealed himself he could see over a part of the moonlit basin, and guard the open space between the camp and the clump of timber that lay in the direction of the nearest mountain.

After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him.

The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock.

He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in the moonlight not twenty paces from him.