Lamancha shook his head. Disgust had made his wits dull.
“Yon beast, as I telled ye, was a traiveller. There’s nothing to keep him in Haripol forest. But he’ll no leave it unless the wund will let him. Now it looks as if Providence was kind to us. The wund’s blawin’ from the Beallach, and he’s bound to gang up-wund.”
The next half-hour was a period of swift drama. Sure enough, the blood-marks turned up the first corrie in the direction from which the two had come in the morning. As the ravine narrowed the stag had evidently taken to the burn, for there were splashes on the rocks and a tinge of red in the pools.
“He’s no far off,” Wattie croaked. “See, man, he’s verra near done. He’s slippin’ sair.”
And then, as they mounted, they came on a little pool where the water was dammed as if b
