Now, it was no easy matter for a band of horsemen to ride from Galway to Sligo in that day, unless they were known men and rode for the king or the Confederacy. Scattered bands of men had come into the west from Ulster and Leinster, and these had driven out what Parliament men had landed; through the early years of the war Owen Ruadh's men had swept all the west country, and now the land was resting, waiting for the storm that was fated to come upon it when the rest of Ireland had been crushed under the heel of Ireton. Enniskillen alone, in Fermanagh, held out for Parliament.

So, while the larger towns were all under Irish authority, the hill-country was full of seething parties from all armies, most of them being ravagers and outlaws who would fear to lay hand on so large a party as Brian's. But little Brian cared for them, and without let or pause he drove north to Ashford and so into the lowlands.Knowing that he must return again by the same way, he avoided the larger towns and pushed hard for Swineford, where he would find word from Turlough. More than once he met parties of men on the road, but these were not anxious to question him, and it was not until he was riding around Claremorris that men began to feel his heavy hand.

With Lough Garra falling behind on the left, and Claremorris at safe distance on the right, Brian was clattering along on the third morning. His men carried muskets slung at their saddles, with bandoliers of cartridges at their waists ready for quick action; and well it was that they were so prepared. Searching ahead with narrowed eyes, Brian caught a quick glint of steel on the road, and in no long time he made out a party of a hundred men riding toward him. Brian got ready both his ax and his safe-conduct, and rode forward without pause.

Now, he had brought with him most of those Scots troopers he had taken into service, and as the other party drew near he heard a swift yell of "Albanach!" that boded no good. But Brian shouted to them and asked who they were.

"None of your affair!" answered their leader, a huge, dark man. "Who are you?"

"Stephen Burke from Galway," answered Brian; but before the words left him he saw a musket flash, and one of his men fell.

Upon that, no more words were wasted. Brian threw up his ax and dug in his spurs, with his men behind; and when they loosed their muskets they rode on the hundred with butts swinging. This was a new kind of warfare in Connaught, and before Brian's ax had struck twice the field was won. From two prisoners he found that the band was composed of a levy of the O'Connors out of the Storm Mountains.

"That is not well for our return," said one of his lieutenants. "We will have the whole country up after this battle, and we have lost ten men."

"Then we shall have the more need of recruits," quoth Brian, and let his prisoners go free, since they would take no service, but only cursed him.

However, Brian was not ill pleased, since he found that he was nearly sped of his wounds, though his left hand gave him some trouble at times. His pleasure was speedily cured, for when they camped that night on the hither side of Kiltarnagh there came a rush of men toward dawn, and before they were beaten off twenty of Brian's men were dead. Five prisoners were taken, and when two of these had been hung, the other three confessed that the attack had been made by certain O'Connors from the southern end of Lough Conn, to whose villages fugitives had come from the affray of the previous morning.

With that, Brian took counsel with some of his men who knew the country, and it was their advice that he give up the ride and return home.

"I will not," said Brian shortly. "This war was not of my seeking, but thirty of my men have been slain. Guide me to these villages, and I will take blood-fine."

This he did because he needs must. His men did no ravaging, and were in need of provisions, while he was minded to fill up his ranks. Also, by taking sharp vengeance, he knew that on his return he was not like to be molested.

So he turned aside and rode fast for Lough Conn, which he reached the next evening, and there came a storm of men on all that country. Twice through the days that followed Brian had to fight hard—once against a muster of the O'Connors, and once against a large force of ravaging hillsmen under one Fitzgerald. Him Brian slew with a blow of his ax that went from shoulder to saddle.

From his men he gained fifty recruits and no small booty, both of money and horses; and from the O'Connors he took bitter blood-fine for his slain men in spare horses and provisions.

These doings are set down briefly in the chronicle; but when Brian turned east again, with Swineford a hard day's ride away, he once more had a hundred and fifty men at his back, with a good store of all things, while his name was one that spread fear. He left his men camped two miles out of Swineford, on the Moy, and rode next morning into the town with a dozen horsemen only.

In the town was quartered a small force of Maguires from Fermanagh, and as he rode in Brian was halted by their leader, who gave him the sele of the day and asked his name. Brian held out his passport, and after Maguire had fumbled over it and pretended that he could read, he gave it back with a grin and Brian passed on with another.

The seal of the Confederacy on the safe-conduct was quite enough for any man in these parts, however.

Brian had not ridden a hundred paces farther before he saw one of Turlough's men beckoning to him from the door of an inn, so he left his troopers to drink outside and passed within. Turlough's man joined him at a table, and there Brian gained news of the most cheering.

Six days before this the Dark Master had arrived at Swineford, with Turlough an hour behind him. The old Wolf, whose cunning made up for his lack of courage, had made shift to get two of O'Donnell's dozen men embroiled with the Maguires. The upshot of that had been a fight, followed by a delay of two days for investigation; finally the Dark Master had slipped away, his two men had promptly been hung, and Turlough had meantime gone ahead to prepare fresh delays at Bellahy and Tobercurry. He had four men left with him, though he had left Bertragh with ten.

"Then O'Donnell has four days' start of me," reflected Brian. "If Turlough can hold him, we will catch him at Sligo at latest."

He left the inn and rode back to his camp, where he had the men on the road in ten minutes. Tobercurry was only fifteen miles north, and putting his horses to a gallop, Brian rode hard and fast until that afternoon he came into the place. He found no garrison, but, instead, was met by old Turlough himself, with a bandaged head and two wounded men.

"Mile failte!" cried Turlough joyously, running forward to kiss Brian's hand in wild delight. "You are well come, master! Is all well down below?"

"All well, old friend," laughed Brian, swinging down to clasp the old man in his arms. "Where is the Dark Master?"

"Where we shall catch him in a forked stick presently," chuckled Turlough, wagging his beard. "Get these wild men of yours out of the town, and come into the inn with me to talk. I have all the Dark Master's plans, master, and we have only to strike."

Brian ordered his men to camp a mile outside town and to do no plundering, so they clattered off, to the great relief of the townfolk.

"Now," said Brian, when they two were sitting across a table, "what has passed that you are bound up? Have you been fighting?"

"Well, after a fashion," grimaced Turlough disgustedly. "I was here ahead of the Dark Master, and raised the townpeople against him for a plunderer. When he came up the road was full of men; but the devil slew two and wounded two of my own men, cut his way through the rest, and as I fled north my horse flung me and bruised my head. Has the castle fallen?"

"Yes," laughed Brian, and related what had happed at Bertragh. "Have I time to bide here and eat?"

Turlough yeasaid this and sent the inn-master bustling for food and wine. When this was set before them, Turlough Wolf told his tale, beginning with the statement that two of O'Donnell's men had been captured when he cut through the townfolk and rode off.

"Where are they?" asked Brian quickly, his eyes narrowing.

"Hanged," chuckled the old man succinctly. "At Galway I could make out nothing more than the word I sent you by messenger, so I came north after O'Donnell Dubh, taking very good care that he saw nothing of me."

"I'll warrant that," laughed Brian. "We met your man at Swineford."

"Then no need to tell what passed there. Well, I said that we caught two of his men here, and I got back into the town just in time to keep the folk from hanging them to the church steeple."

"Eh?" Brian stared, with his mouth full. "Why, I thought you said—"

"Dhar mo lamh, give me time to finish, master!" Turlough hesitated a little, evidently in some fear. "We took them into the churchyard and burned them a little, and so got out of them all the Dark Master's plans. Then the priest shrived them, and I let the townfolk hang them."

Brian looked across the table, his blue eyes like ice and his nostrils quivering with anger; the old man slanted up his gray eyes and turned uneasily in his seat, for well he knew what Brian would say to this.

"That was ill done, Turlough Wolf. If you had not served me so well, you would repent that work. By my faith, I am minded to hang you at their side!"

Brian meant it, for the torture of men made him furious.

"I am no fool to spare mad dogs," muttered Turlough sullenly. "It was the Dark Master who lopped these ears of mine eight years gone."

"Tell your tale," said Brian curtly and fell to eating again.

"I found tidings both good and bad, master. From Galway the Dark Master had sent messengers to his kin in Donegal, bidding them send aid south; also, he sent to certain pirates north of Sligo Bay. From Sligo to the Erne all that land is desolate, and has been so these six years, and the O'Donnells from Lough Swilly have set up a pirate hold near Millhaven. It was to these that the Dark Master sent also.

"He has appointed a meeting-place in the hills beyond Drumcliff, at a certain mountain named Clochaun, or the Stone. Now, whether you think my craft evil or good, master, it is yet gainful to us."

This much Brian was forced to acknowledge, though for many days afterward he was still angry at Turlough for torturing and hanging those men. He had no scruples about a downright hanging, but torturing was a very different matter, and one of which he had tasted himself.

"Well, what is your advice in this?"

"We can do one of two things, master. The one is to ride on to Sligo and fall on him when he comes south again with his men; the other is to ride hard after him and catch him, then fall on the Millhaven men, then meet the O'Donnells who are coming south to join him at the Stone Mountain with the rest."

"The first plan is more cautious," said Brian thoughtfully; "but to strike him when he has his men around him would be to repeat what we have done. I like the other way the better."

"It is both safer and yet more dangerous, master. Safer in that we smite him and his men separately, and more dangerous because we shall be in the heart of a wild country, without supplies, and with no aid in case we are defeated."

"It is more to my mind to talk of winning than losing," grunted Brian. "I have spare horses and money with which to buy provisions. Also, I think that I shall stamp flat that pirate nest at Millhaven, and set up my own banner there."

"Then you have a banner of your own, master?" Turlough squinted up slyly, for it was the first hint Brian had given him of what lay behind his nickname.

"Aye!" laughed Brian as the wine warmed him. "And it shall bear the Red Hand of Tyr-owen, old Wolf; but first to catch the Dark Master. Now let us go, for we shall ride to the Stone Mountain and see what haps there."

Upon that they rode forth from the town, and all the townfolk bade the crafty Turlough farewell, and gave him gifts for warning them against the "plunderers." Turlough looked up at the two bodies swinging in the wind as they passed the church-tower, and put his tongue in his cheek, but Brian said no more on the subject.

That night they camped outside the town, and Brian bought all the provision that the people would sell. This he loaded on the spare horses, and the next morning they set off for the north.

Now, in that fighting by Lough Conn, Brian had taken a shrewd clip which had reopened the bullet-tear over his scalp. Added to this, he was not yet in all of his former strength, and the hard ride to Tobercurry had set his blood to heating; wherefore it was that before coming to Sligo Brian was heavy with fever and was shaken with chill. A hard snow was driving through the night, and Turlough sent most of the men around the city to wait for them on the other side the Garravogue to avoid danger.

There was no garrison in Sligo, however. The old castle which Red Hugh O'Donnell had fought over in the old days was ruined; the grand monastery, built by Brian of Tyr-erril, had been burned by Hamilton's men, together with the town itself, and Sligo was well-nigh desolate. Turlough got shelter in a hovel, however; managed to put Brian into a miserable bed, and gave him a brew to drink. With the morning Brian found his fever gone, but weakness was on him.

They stayed in Sligo town all that day and the next night, and upon dawn, Brian insisted on riding north once more, against Turlough's protests. However, no ill came of it, for Brian was well used to riding, and the exercise gave him strength, though they made but a short march that day past the round tower of Drumcliff, halting in the hills.

As Turlough Wolf knew where the Stone Mountain was they had no use for guides. It lay only another day's march ahead of them, and there was some danger that their quarry would descry their coming and flee away to Millhaven.

"This is my rede, master;" said Turlough, "that you and I ride ahead with a few men to see how things go, and leave our men to follow. The hills are empty of rovers, for there is naught to plunder; but it were well to know if the Dark Master has joined with those friends of his."

"That seems good advice," said Brian, and, taking a dozen men, they rode forward warily, sending out other parties to scout also.

Over them towered the whiteness of the Stone Mountain, for snow lay thickly on all things. Brian gazed up at the gray-jutted crags, but his thoughts were not all with the Dark Master. Him he already accounted slain, and he was thinking of that Millhaven stronghold.

One day his own banner should fly there, he told himself. There must be a good harbor, else the northern pirates had never settled down to hold the place; and since all the country roundabout lay bleak and unsettled of men, the vision came to him of first taking the place, and then fetching O'Neills from the east and north to settle the lands around. They would flock to him when his condition was made known, and that Cromwell's men would shatter the royalists and confederacy Brian saw clearly, as Owen Ruadh had foretold him.

Already the house of Tyr-owen was scattered and fallen, as the greater house of Tyr-connall had been before it, for when the last earl had fled from the land, there had been only the younger branch to hold the sept together. Owen Ruadh was the final glory of that branch, and now Brian entertained the vision of transplanting the Red Hand and of making his rule strong in the west.

But other men had entertained the same vision before him, and it had remained a vision, and no more; and the high hopes of Brian himself were fated to be driven upon the rocks of destiny before many days had passed over.

With the afternoon the little party stood on the lower slopes of the Stone Mountain itself, and Turlough drew the shape of the place in the snow with his pike-haft.

"Here are we," he explained, "on the southern slopes. A half-mile ahead of us is a valley with a small and fast-rushing water, where we shall make camp this night if the Dark Master be not before us. And if he is not, then he will be on the northern side, where there are two well-sheltered valleys with water running, fit for the meeting-place and camp of men. Here is the easternmost, but, as I remember it, the snow fills the valley somewhat in winter. The other holds a small lake called the Dubh Linn, or Black Tarn, and in one of these we shall find the Dark Master, unless he is here before us."

"Well, let us ride on and see to that," said Brian, and they did so.

However, they found the valley deserted and empty, and picked a place for camp, sending back a horseman to bring up the force. They could make out no smoke rising from the mountain, nor dared they light fires until after dark for fear of alarming O'Donnell; but when the force came up, Brian sent out scouts to bring in what word might be had.

"Where got you such knowledge of this wilderness?" he asked Turlough that night when the fires were blazing and the men were warmed and fed. The old man narrowed his gray eyes and chuckled a little.

"I have been in many armies, master, though I have fought not; and I have been outlawed twice by the English, in the old days. This was always a good place to flee to."

Brian laughed and said no more. That night the men rested well, and Brian himself got sleep which sent strength into him and served him well in the days to come, for it was long before he was to sleep again, save as he rode, nodding in the saddle.

Not until nearly dawn did the last of the scouts straggle in. None of these bore any news, and all agreed that no signs could they find of any large band of men, nor of any men at all. Turlough heard their reports, letting Brian sleep, and only when the last man came in were any tidings brought. This man bore a strip of sheepskin, which, he said, an old woman had given him to bear to his master.

"A woman!" exclaimed Turlough, scanning the written words on the sheepskin, but unable to read them. "What is she like? It is a strange thing if women bide on Slieve Clochaun! Was there any stead near by?"

"None," replied the man, who trembled with something more than cold. "M'anam go'n Dhia! She was a witch woman, or worse, Turlough Wolf. She leaped out of the snow in my path, told me to bear that skin to Yellow Brian, and vanished in a burst of fire. How could she not have been a devil?"

"Nonsense!" grunted Turlough, though he suddenly laid the strip of skin down. "You are overwarm with uisquebagh, man. What was this woman like? Was she clad all in black?"

"Faith, I did not stop to see," grinned the man sheepishly.

Turlough stroked his beard, while the men went off to eat and sleep. He gazed at the strip of skin, and twice stretched out his hand toward it, with his eye on the fire, but each time drew back. Then he glanced around craftily, found he was alone, and took from under his cloak a small, brass crucifix. With this he touched the skin, found that nothing happened, and rose with a nod. The dawn was just breaking in the east.

"There is no sorcery in it, at least," he muttered; "but I think it bodes no great good to us. Ho, Brian!"

Brian woke and sprang up. Turlough handed him the strip of skin, saying no word, and when Brian had held it to the light of the embers, he looked up suddenly.

"Whence came this?"

"What does it say first?" returned Turlough uneasily.

"News!" cried Brian, his blue eyes aflame with eagerness. "It says that O'Donnell bides alone by the Black Tarn, and that his horsemen from the north are camped two miles beyond the mountain, waiting for him, and that he has made pact with the Millhaven pirates and they have left for their stronghold. Answer me—whence came this? It is written in good English writing, man!"

Then Turlough told of what had chanced, and when he had done, Brian stared into his gray eyes with a great wonder. Twice he tried to speak, but his lips were dry.

"The Black Woman!" he muttered thickly. "Can it be, Turlough? Who is she?"

"That was my thought, master," said Turlough. "Who she is none know save herself; but she deals with no good. This may be a trap; let us ride south again, and at once, lest evil come upon us."

"South? Not I," laughed Brian, though his face was pale. "To horse, men!"

And at his ringing shout the camp awoke, and Brian saw his vengeance drawing near.