The below is on two typewritten and handwritten cards in the James Madison Carpenter Archive, dated 1931.
Willie MacIntosh (The Burning Of Auchindoun)
From Miss Cruickshank of Forres, a clipping published in -- September 1885, for her mother, Mrs M G Cruikshank who was born in [Dandyleitle?], Morayshire, across the Rover Spey near Rothes, and died in 1886 aged 67 years.
Dear Sir, -- I send you a fragment of a very interesting old ballad, -- The Burning Of Auchindoun. Perhaps some of your readers (if you think it worth putting in the Journal) may be able to supply the missing verses.The last Duke of Gordon is said to have offered a reward for the complete ballad. These are all the verses I have been able to procure. Yours Truly, G. September 1885

“Bonnie Willie MacIntosh, Whar are ye gaun sae early?”
“I’m gaun to Auchindoun To gar Lord Huntly fairly.”
“Rue o that, MacIntosh, An turn again, I bid ye;
Huntly he is there himself, An winna care to head ye.”
“Head me, hang me, That winna fleg me;
I’ll burn Auchindoun, [Or my life lee / afore life leave] me.”

To Fiddich side he hied him, On that May morning;
But tint the crap o his corn For his crouse crawin.
As I cam in by Fiddich side On that May morning,
There was bonnie Auchindoun In a lowe burnin.
Lord Huntly stood on Cairn [Crowl?] A lookin even doon,
Saw mony a meke an mither’s son Set fire to Auchindoun.

Lord Huntly led the way –Untill they cam to Steppletmunth, An there he bade them stay.
MacIntosh was on a gude grey steed; It wanted a the tail;
He hied him on to Inverness Wi nane ane but himself.
They fairlied sair to see him there, Cried, “Whar’s a yer men?”
“I left them in the Stepplermunth To feed the Cabrach swine.”

I find no version of the ballad in the Greig-Duncan Collection, but Poetry of Northeast Scotland, published by Heinemann for Grampian Regional Council, 1976, has six verses. They include the place name Cairn Croom, and MacIntosh answering twice about where he left his men – ‘I left them in the Stapler, But they’ll never come hame’, and ‘I left them in the Stapler, Sleeping in their sheen’.
Lines about feeding the Cabrach swine are said in an article about the area to have been suing by Cabrach women at their work.
The Steplar Trail runs from Glenlivet to Aldunie in the Cabrach. On an old map not now to hand, I found half way along the Trail the small Steplar Burn .

The below Miss Cruickshank of Forres is surely the same Miss J Cruickshank that Carpenter met in Dufftown?
She had sent the clipping on behalf of her mother, whose initials were M G, and Carpenter took a copy of it..

Information from Carpenter's card is used courtesy of the James Madison Carpenter Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.