THE DOUBLE ALIBI 169 



T hardly know how I got him there, for, light 

 as he was, I am no Hercules. However, with 

 many a rest, we reached the little dell ; and then 

 I carried him up its green side, and laid him on 

 the heather of the moor. 



He wrote again : 



' Go to that clump of rushes — the third from 

 the little hillock. Then look, but be careful. Then 

 lift the big grass tussock.' 



The spot which Allen indicated was on the 

 side of a rather steep grassy slope. I approached 

 it, dragged at the tussock of grass, which came 

 'away easily enough, and revealed the entrance to 

 no more romantic hiding-place than an old secret 

 whiskey ' still.' Private stills, not uncommon in 

 Sutherland and some other northern shires, are 

 extinct in Galloway. Allen had probably found 

 this one by accident in his wanderings, and in his 

 half-insane bitterness against mankind had made 

 it, for some time at least, his home. The smoke- 

 blackened walls, the recesses where the worm-tub 

 and the still now stood, all plainly enough betrayed 

 the original user of the hiding-place. There was 



