THE DOUBLE ALIBI 



149 



think that some emissary of Mr. Watson Lyall was 

 making experiments in Loch Nan,, and would 

 describe it in ' The Sportsman's Guide.' The mist 

 blew white and thick for a minute or two over the 

 lochside, as it often does at Loch Skene ; so white 

 and thick and sudden that the bewildered angler 

 there is apt to lose his way, and fall over the 

 precipice of the Grey Mare's Tail. When the 

 curtain of cloud rose again, the loch was lonely : 

 the angler had disappeared. I went on rejoicing, 

 and made a pretty good basket, as the weather 

 improved and grew warmer — a change which gives 

 an appetite to trout in some hill lochs. Among 

 the sands between the stones on the farther bank 

 I found traces of the angler's footsteps ; he was 

 not a phantom, at all events, for phantoms do not 

 wear heavily nailed boots, as he evidently did. 

 The traces, which were soon lost, of course, 

 inclined me to think that he had retreated up a 

 narrow green burnside, with rather high banks, 

 through which, in rainy weather, a small feeder 

 fell into the loch. I guessed that he had been 

 frightened away by the descent of the mist, which 



