hid from us by a fold in the hillside. Stalky was brownin' 'em at a great rate, and very naturally they turned half right and began to blaze at their faithless allies, the Khye-Kheens-regular volley firin'. In less than ten minutes after Stalky opened the diversion they were going it hammer and tongs, both sides the valley. Then our recruits began to dance on one leg with excitement. But we wouldn't join the ball so long as the ruffians outside were doing our work for us. We sat tight till the dawn, thinkin' how deuced well armed they were, and how they were wastin' their ammunition. When we could see, the valley was rather a mixed-up affair. The Khye-Kheens had streamed out of their sungars above the gorge to chastise the Malôts, and Stalky-I was watching him. through my glasses-had slipped in behind 'em. Very good. The Khye-Kheens had to leg it along the hillside up to where the gorge got shallow and they could cross over to the Malôts, who were awfully cheered to see the Khye-Kheens taken in the rear. "Then it occurred to me to comfort the Khye-Kheens. So I turned out the whole command, and we advanced a la pas de charge, doublin' up what, for the sake of argument, we'll call the Malôts' left flank. Even then, if they'd sunk their differences, they could have eaten us alive; but they'd been firin' at each other half the night, and they went on firin'. Queerest thing you ever saw in your born days! As soon as our men doubled up to the Malôts, they'd blaze at the Khye-Kheens more zealously than ever, to show they were on our side; run up the valley a few hundred yards, and halt to fire again. The moment Stalky saw our game he duplicated it his side the gorge; and, by Jove! the Khye-Kheens did just the same thing." “Yes, but," said Tertius, "you've for got him playin' Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby' on the bugle to hurry us up.' "Did he?" roared McTurk. Some how we all began to sing it, and there was an interruption. "Rather," said Tertius, when we were quiet. No one of the Aladdin company could forget that tune. Yes, he played Patsy'-Go on, Dick." "Finally," said Dick Four, "we drove both mobs into each other's arms on a bit of level land at the head of the valley, and saw the whole crew whirl off, fightin' and stabbin' and swearin' in a blinding snowstorm. They were a heavy, hairy lot, and we didn't follow 'em. 'Stalky had captured one prisoner—an old pensioned Sepoy of twenty-five years' service, who produced his discharge—an awf'ly sportin' old card. He had been tryin' to make 'em rush us early in the day. He was sulky-angry with his own side for their cowardice, and Rutton Singh wanted to bayonet him-Sikhs don't understand fightin' against the Government after you've served it honestly-but Stalky rescued him, and froze on to him tight, with ulterior motives, I believe. When we got back to the fort, we buried young EverettStalky wouldn't hear of blowin' up the place-and bunked. We'd only lost ten men, all told." "Only ten, out of seventy. you lose 'em?" I asked. How did "Oh, there was a rush on the fort early in the night, and a few Malôts got over the gate. It was rather a tight thing for a minute or two, but the recruits took it beautifully. Lucky job we hadn't any badly wounded men to carry, because we had forty miles to Macnamara's camp. By Jove, how we legged it! Half way in, old Rutton Singh collapsed, so we slung him across four rifles and Stalky's overcoat; and Stalky, his prisoner, and a couple of Sikhs were his bearers. After that I went to sleep. You can, you know, on the march, when your legs get properly numbed. Mac swears we all marched into his camp snoring and dropped where we halted. His men lugged us into the tents like gram-bags. I remember wakin' up and seeing Stalky asleep with his head on old Rutton Singh's chest. He slept twentyfour hours. I only slept seventeen, but then I was coming down with dysentery." Coming down? What rot! He had it on him before we joined Stalky in the fort," said Tertius. and come in before winter. So Stalky, who hadn't turned a hair, took half his supplies to save him the bother o' luggin' 'em back to the plains, and all the ammunition he could get at, and, consilio et auxilio Rutton Singhi, tramped back to his fort with all his Sikhs and his precious prisoner, and a lot of dissolute hangers-on that he and the prisoner had seduced into service. Had sixty men of sorts-and his brazen cheek. Mac nearly wept with joy when he went. You see there weren't any explicit orders to Stalky to come in before the passes were blocked: Mac is a great man for orders, and Stalky's a great man for orders-when they suit his book. He'd taken every firebrand and camp devil and professional mutineer with him." "Told me he was goin' to the Engadine," said Tertius. "Sat on my cot smokin' a cigarette, and makin' me laugh till I cried. Macnamara bundled the whole lot of us down to the plains next day. We were a walkin' hospital." told "Stalky me that Mac namara was a simple godsend to him," said Dick Four. "He blarneyed that virtuous old Sapper out of his boots. I used to see him in Mac's tent listenin' to Mac playin' the fiddle, and, between the pieces, wheedlin' Mac out of picks and shovels and dynamite cartridges hand over fist. Well, that was the last we saw of Stalky. A week or SO later the passes were shut with snow, and I don't think Stalky wanted to be found particularly just then." 66 He didn't," said the fair and fat Abanazar. "He didn't. Ho, ho!" Dick Four threw up his thin, dry hand with the blue veins at the back of it. "Hold on a minute, Pussy; I'll let you in at the proper time. I went down to my regiment, and that spring, five months later, I got off with a couple of companies on detachment: nominally to look after some friends of ours across the border; actually, of course, to recruit. It was a bit unfortunate, because an ass of a young Naick carried a frivolous blood feud he'd inherited from his aunt into those hills, and the local gentry wouldn't TRAMPED BACK TO HIS FORT, WITH ALL HIS SIKHS AND HIS PRECIOUS PRISONER, were rather homesick, but they cheered up when they recognized some of my chaps, who had been in the Khye-Kheen row, and they made a rippin' good lot. It's rather more than three hundred miles from Fort Everett to where I picked 'em up. Now, Pussy, tell 'em the latter end o' Stalky as you saw it." volunteer into my corps. Of course, the sided. "I chaperoned the gang across Naick had taken short leave to manage the border as quick as I could. They the business; that was all regular enough; but he'd stalked my pet orderly's uncle. It was an infernal shame, because I knew Harris of the Ghuznees would be covering that ground three months later, and he'd snaffle all the chaps I had my eyes on. Everybody was down on the Naick, because they felt he ought to have had the decency to postpone his-his disgustful amours till our companies were full strength. "Still the beast had a certain amount of professional feeling left. He sent one of his aunt's clan by night to tell me that, if I'd take safeguard, he'd put me on to a batch of beauties. I nipped over the border like a shot, and about ten miles the other side, in a nullah, my rappareein-charge showed me about seventy men variously armed, but standing up like a Queen's company. Then one of 'em stepped out and lugged round an old bugle, just like-who's the man ?-Bancroft, ain't it?-feeling for his eyeglass in a farce, and played Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby. Arrah, Patsy, mind '— that was as far as he could get. That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, because we had to sing the old song through twice, again and once more, and subsequently, in order to repeat it. "He explained that if I knew the rest of the song he had a note for me from the man the song belonged to. Whereupon, my children, I finished that old tune on that bugle, and this is what I got. I knew you'd like to look at it. Don't grab." (We were all struggling for a sight of the well-known unformed handwriting.) "I'll read it aloud. 664 "FORT EVERETT, February 19. Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, official laugh. "Oh, it wasn't much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, out of his snows, began corresponding direct with the Government." "After the manner of a king," suggested Dick Four. "My turn now, Dick. He'd done a whole lot of things he shouldn't have done, and constructively pledged the Government to all sorts of action. "Pledged the State's ticker, eh?” said McTurk, with a nod to me. "About that; but the embarrassin' part was that it was all so thunderin' convenient, so well reasoned, don't you know? Came in as pat as if he'd had access to all sorts of information-which he couldn't, of course." "Pooh!" said Tertius, "I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any day." "He'd done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin' coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of buildin' this infernal road and bein' blocked by the snow. His report was simply amazin'. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and then he gasped, Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy'll never stand it. It's unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in person. him up here and pitch in a stinger.' I sent him no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial telegram at the same time." Order "You!" This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat. DEAR DICK, OR TERTIUS: The bearer of this is in charge of seventy-five recruits, all pukka devils, but desirous of leading new lives. They have been slightly polished, and after being boiled may shape well. I want you to give thirty of them to my adjutant, who will need men this spring. The rest you can keep. You will be interested to learn that I have extended my road to the end of the Malôt country. All headmen and priests concerned in last September's affair worked one month each, supplying road metal from their own houses. Everett's grave is covered by a forty-foot mound, which should serve well as a base for future triangulations. Rutton Singh sends his best salaams. I am making some wired: treaties, and have given my prisoner-who also sends his salaams-local rank of Khan Bahadur. “A. L. CoCKRAN.'" "Well, that was all," said Dick Four, when the roaring, the shouting, the laughter, and, I think, almost the tears, had sub 46 "Yes-me," said Abanazar. 'Twasn't much, but after what you've said, Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I "Aladdin now has got his wife, I think you'd better come to life: "Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly non-committal and encouragin'. The only flaw was that his Emperor wasn't appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from his mountain fastnesses and loafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be offered up on the horns of the altar." ett for the next six months, and I always "But," I began, "surely the C.-in-C. ing with pride. is the proper "His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior captain-same as King used to blow us up-he was holdin' the reins of empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert encouraged him. I'm not sure Von Lennaert didn't put that notion into his head." "They've changed the breed, then, since my time," I said. P'r'aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin' like a little bad boy. I've reason to believe that His Excellency's hair stood on end. He walked into Stalky for one hour-Stalky at attention in the middle of the floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down His Excellency's topknot in dumb show in the background. Stalky didn't dare to look up, or he'd have laughed." "Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?" said the Infant, with a large and luminous leer. "Ah, wherefore?" said Abanazar. "To give him a chance to retrieve his blasted career, and not to break his father's heart. Stalky hadn't a father, but that didn't matter. He behaved like a -like the Sanawas Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out his nostrils. Then he said, Pussy, if I thought that basket-hanger-'" "Hah! He remembered that," said McTurk. "That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I'd become a naturalized Muscovite to-morrow. I'm a femme incomprise. This thing's broken my heart. It'll take six months' shootin' leave in India to mend it. Think I can get it, Pussy?" "He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh-horrid disgraced-with orders to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie." "Observe! said Dick Four. "One colonel of the Political Department in charge of thirty Sikhs, on a hilltop. Observe, my children!" "Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he is a Political, let Stalky do his shooting within fifteen miles of Fort Ever We all turned as one man. "It was at the beginning of this hot weather. I was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled slap on Stalky in a Sikh village; sitting on the one chair of state, with half the population grovelin' before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his knees, an old harridan clappin' him on the shoulder, and a garland o' flowers round his neck. Told me he was recruitin'. We dined together that night, but he never said a word of the business at the Fort. Told me, though, that if I wanted any supplies I'd better say I was Koran Sahib's bhai; and I did, and the Sikhs wouldn't take my money." "Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh's villages," said Dick Four; and we smoked for some time in silence. "I say," said McTurk, casting back through the years. "Did Stalky ever tell you how Rabbits-Eggs came to rock King that night?" "No," said Dick Four. "I see," said Dick Four, nodding. "Practically he duplicated that trick over again. There's nobody like Stalky." "That's just where you make the mistake," I said. "India's full of Stalkies -Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps-that we don't know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is really a big row on.' "Who will be surprised?" said Dick Four. "The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. sider it quietly." Con "There's something in that, but you're too much of an optimist, Beetle, said the Infant. "Well, I've a right to be. Ain't I responsible for the whole thing? You needn't laugh. Who wrote Aladdin now has got his wife'-eh?” "What's that got to do with it?" said Tertius. "Everything," said I. "Prove it," said the Infant, |