All the moral qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and Glenlyon possessed in perfection.

But neither seems to have had much professional skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when the weather was very likely to be bad.

The consequence was that the fox earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time.

Glenlyon and his men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms instead of using the cold steel.

The peal and flash of gun after gun gave notice, from three different parts of the valley at once; that murder was doing.