between Allan and William Stewart, and Allan actually did employ this
man to carry his letter. But Allan knew this tenant well, as did
James, and there was nobody else at that desolate spot, Coalisnacoan,
whom Allan could employ. So lonely is the country that a few years ago
a gentleman of my acquaintance, climbing a rocky cliff, found the
bones of a man gnawed by foxes and eagles; a man who never had been
missed or inquired after. Remains of pencils and leather shoe strings
among the bones proved that the man had been a pedlar, like James
Stewart's messenger, who had fallen over the precipice in trying to
cross from Coalisnacoan to the road through Glencoe. But he never was
missed, nor is the date of his death known to this day.

The evidence of the lonely tenant at Coalisnacoan, as to his
interviews with Allan, is familiar to readers of _Kidnapped_. The
tenant had heard of the murder before he saw Allan. Two poor women,
who came up from Glencoe, told the story, saying that '_two men_ were
seen going from the spot where Glenure was killed, and that Allan
Breck was one of them.' Thus early does the mysterious figure of _the
other man_ haunt the evidence. The tenant's testimony was not regarded
as trustworthy by the Stewart party; it tended to prove that Allan
expected a change of clothes and money to be sent to him, and he also
wrote the letter (with a wood-pigeon's quill, and powder and water) to
William Stewart, asking for money. But Allan might do all this relying
on his own message sent by Donald Stewart, on the night of the murder,
to James of the Glens, and knowing, as he must have done, that William
Stewart was James's agent in his large financial operations.

On the whole, then, the evidence, even where it 'pinches' James most,
is by no means conclusive proof that on May 11 he had planned the
murder with Allan. If so, he must have begun to try to raise money