s against it savagely. But the door was stout, and only a
battering-ram in human hands could have made it yield.

Unfortunately, there was no knowing when the men-folk would return from
their chase of the horses, nor how long the wolves would lay siege.
The two women tried shooting, though Pundita was the veriest tyro,
being more frightened at the weapon in her hands than at the howling
animals outside. They did little or no damage to the wolves, for the
available cracks were not at sufficiently good angles. An hour went
by, Kathlyn could hear the wolves as they crowded against the door,
sniffing the sill.

The colonel, Bruce, Ramabai and Ahmed had found the horses half a dozen
miles away; and they had thrashed the thieving natives soundly and
instilled the right kind of fear in their breasts. At rifle point they
had forced the natives back to the rest house. The crack of their
rifles soon announced to Kathlyn that the dread of wolves was a thing
of the past. She wisely refrained from recounting her experiences.
The men had worry enough.

After a hasty meal the journey toward the sea-port began in earnest.
Umballa's attack had thrown them far out of the regular track. They
were now compelled to make a wide detour. Where the journey might have
been made in three days, they would be lucky now if they reached the
sea under five. The men took turns in standing watch whenever they
made camp, and Kathlyn nor Pundita had time for idleness. They had
learned their lessons; no more carelessness, nothing but the sharpest
vigilance from now on.

One day, as the pony caravan made a turn round a ragged promontory,
they suddenly paused. Perhaps twenty miles to the west lay the emerald
tinted Persian Gulf. The colonel slipped off his horse, dragged
Kathlyn from hers, and began to execute a hornpipe. He was like a boy.

"The sea, Kit, the sea! Home and Winnie; out of this devil's cauldron!
You will come along with us, Bruce?"

"I haven't anything else to do," Bruce smiled back.

Then he gazed at Kathlyn, who found herself suddenly filled with
strange embarrassment. In times of danger sham and subterfuge have no
place. Heretofore she had met Bruce as a man, to whom a glance from
her eyes had told her secret. Now that the door to civilization lay
but a few miles away, the old conventions dropped their obscuring
mantles over her, and she felt ashamed. And there was not a little
doubt. Perhaps she had mistaken the