fighting out through the long hilarious night the fiercest fight of his
life, chiefly because of the words that lay like a balm to his lacerated
heart:

"He didn't quit, 'specially when he felt like it."



CHAPTER II

THE GLEN OF THE CUP OF GOLD


Just over the line of the Grampians, near the head-waters of the Spey, a
glen, small and secluded, lies bedded deep among the hills,--a glen that
when filled with sunlight on a summer day lies like a cup of gold; the
gold all liquid and flowing over the cup's rim. And hence they call the
glen "The Cuagh Oir," The Glen of the Cup of Gold.

At the bottom of the Cuagh, far down, a little loch gleams, an oval of
emerald or of sapphire, according to the sky above that smiles into
its depths. On dark days the loch can gloom, and in storm it can rage,
white-lipped, just like the people of the Glen.

Around the emerald or sapphire loch farmlands lie sunny and warm, set
about their steadings, and are on this spring day vivid with green,
or rich in their red-browns where the soil lies waiting for the seed.
Beyond the sunny fields the muirs of brown heather and bracken climb
abruptly up to the dark-massed firs, and they to the Cuagh's rim. But
from loch to rim, over field and muir and forest, the golden, liquid