s, their horses' breasts
pressed tight against the charger that Jaimihr rode. The horse screamed
as the shock crushed the wind out of him.

"You robbed me of my man, sahib, by about a sabre's breadth!" laughed
Alwa.

"And you left your squadron leaderless without my permission!" answered
Cunningham. "You too! Mahommed Gunga!"

"But, sahib!"

"Do you prefer to argue or obey?"

Mahommed Gunga flushed and rode back. Alwa grinned and started after
him. Cunningham, without another glance at the dead Prince, rode up to
Rosemary McClean, who was picking herself up and looking bewildered;
she had watched the duel in speechless silence, lying full length in the
dust, and she still could not speak when he reached her.

"Put your foot on mine," he said reassuringly; "then swing yourself up
behind me if you can. If you can't, I'll pick you up in front."

She tried hard, but she failed; so he put both arms under hers and
lifted her.

"Am I welcome?" he asked. And she nodded.

Fresh from killing a man--with a man's blood on his broken sword and the
sweat of fighting not yet dry on him--he held a woman in his arms for
the first time in his life. His hand had been steady when it struck the
blow under Jaimihr's ribs, but now it trembled. His eyes had been stern
and blazing less than two minutes before; now they looked down into
nothing more dangerous than a woman's eyes and grew strangely softer
all at once. His mouth had been a hard, tight line under a scrubby upper
lip, but his lips had parted now a little and his smile was a boy's--not
nervous or mischievous--a happy boy's.

She smiled, too. Most people did smile when young Cunningham looked
pleased with them; but she smiled differently. And he, with that blood
still wet on him, bent down and kissed her on the lips. Her answer was
as characteristic as his action.

"You look like a blackguard," she said--"but you came, and I knew you
would! I told Jaimihr you would, and he laughed at me. I told God you
would, and you came! How long is it since you shaved? Your chin is all
prickly!"

They were interrupted by a roar from the three waiting squadrons. He had
ridden without caring where he went, and his mare had borne the two of
them to where the squadrons were drawn up with their rear to the great
gap in the wall. The situation suited every Rangar of them! That was,
indeed, the way a man should win his woman! They cheered him, and
cheered again, and he grinned back, knowin