He soon returned to the Lowlands, and stayed there till he learned that a considerable body of troops had been sent to apprehend him, [337] He then betook himself to the hill country as his last refuge, pushed northward through Strathdon and Strathbogie, crossed the Spey, and, on the morning of the first of May, arrived with a small band of horsemen at the camp of Keppoch before Inverness.
The new situation in which Dundee was now placed, the new view of society which was presented to him, naturally suggested new projects to his inventive and enterprising spirit.

The hundreds of athletic Celts whom he saw in their national order of battle were evidently not allies to be despised.

If he could form a great coalition of clans, if he could muster under one banner ten or twelve thousand of those hardy warriors, if he could induce them to submit to the restraints of discipline, what a career might be before him! A commission from King James, even when King James was securely seated on the throne, had never been regarded with much respect by Coll of the Cows.

That chief, however, hated the Campbells with all the hatred of a Macdonald, and promptly gave in his adhesion to the cause of the House of Stuart.

Dundee undertook to settle the dispute between Keppoch and Inverness.