g and torturing and hunting
down Armenians that they seemed to have no time for duty on that
part of the frontier. Perhaps that was why the Germans had sent
Wassmuss, in order that the Turks might have more leisure to destroy
their enemies at home! Who knows? There are many things about this
great war to which none know the answer, and I think the fate of the
Armenians is one of them.

But who thought any more of Armenians when the outer spurs of the
foot-hills began to close around us? Not we, at any rate. We had
problems enough of our own. What lay behind us was behind, and the
future was likely to afford us plenty to think about! Too many of us
had fought among the slopes of the Himalayas now to know how
difficult it would be for Turks to follow us; but those
mountaineers, who are nearly as fierce as our mountaineers of
northern India, and who have ever been too many for the Turks, were
likely to prove more dangerous than anything we had met yet.

We had enough food packed on our captured mules to last us for
perhaps another eight days when we at last rode into a grim defile
that seemed to lead between the very gate-posts of the East--two
great mountains, one on either hand, barren, and ragged, and hard.
We were being led at that time by a Kurdish prisoner, who had lain
by the wayside with the bellyache. Our Greek doctor had physicked
him, and he was now compelled to lead us under Ranjoor Singh's
directions, with his hands made fast behind him, he riding on a mule
with one of our men on either hand. By that time Ranjoor Singh had
picked up enough information at different times, and had added
enough of it together to know whither we must march, and the Kurd
had nothing to do but obey orders.

We had scarcely ridden three hundred yards into the defile of which
I speak, remarking the signs of another small body of mounted men
who had preceded us, when fifty shots rang out from overhead and we
took open order as if a shell had burst among us. Nobody was hit,
however, and I think nobody was intended to be hit. I saw that
Ranjoor Singh looked unalarmed. He beckoned for Abraham, who looked
terrified, and I took Abraham by the shoulder and brought him
forward. There came a wild yell from overhead, and Ranjoor Singh
made Abraham answer it with something about Wassmuss. In the
shouting that followed I caught the word Wassmuss many times.

Presently a Kurdish chief came galloping down, for all the world as
one of our Indi