Look down there!" Clem Elliot said, pointing down the slope. "He's breaching the stream back again!" Heckie turned. "By hell! He is!" Mairi turned too, less easily. She sat her horse between Heckie and Clem, her ankles tied by a rope slung under the mare's belly, her hands on the saddle pommel, bound at the wrists. The restless clouds had blown past the moon again, and she peered through the darkness, past the riders and Jean's stolen beasts, and down the long slope to the rough stream. Below, a dark moving shape cut through the pale foam: man and horse wading through the wild water. She gasped, fear rising as she watched Rowan and Valentine surge forward. "He'll drown, the fool," a man chortled. "He'll make it," Heckie said. "Damned Black Laird. He rode wi' Devil Davy Armstrong and Alec Scott. A floody river never held back that wild lot." "He's got a demon in him, to take that water," Clem said. "Demon or no, he'll clear the stream and be on our tail soon," Heckie said. "Ride!" He yanked the rope clutched in his fist, attached to Peg's bridle.
