The Mackintoshes therefore remained neutral; and their example was followed by the Macphersons, another branch of the race of the wild cat.

This was not Dundee's only disappointment.

The Mackenzies, the Frasers, the Grants, the Munros, the Mackays, the Macleods, dwelt at a great distance from the territory of Mac Callum More.

They had no dispute with him; they owed no debt to him: and they had no reason to dread the increase of his power.

They therefore did not sympathize with his alarmed and exasperated neighbours, and could not be induced to join the confederacy against him, [339] Those chiefs, on the other hand, who lived nearer to Inverary, and to whom the name of Campbell had long been terrible and hateful, greeted Dundee eagerly, and promised to meet him at the head of their followers on the eighteenth of May.