The word was repeated, with the scornful laugh of the group to enforce it.

The shepherd called his dog-- "Keeper, you tak the sheep to the Cruchan corrie, and dinna let are o' them stray." The dumb creature looked in his face assentingly, and with a sharp bark took the flock charge.

Then the shepherd walked up to the group, and Jim Armstrong rose to meet him.
"Nae dirks," said an old man quietly; "tak your hands like men." Before the speech was over they were clinched in a grasp which meant gigantic strength on one side, and a good deal of practical bruising science on the other.

But before there was an opportunity of testing the quality of either the dominie was between the men.

He threw them apart like children, and held each of them at arm's length, almost as a father might separate two fighting schoolboys.