the housetops, or threw his soul after his eyes across
the deep blue gulfs between range and range. And there were talks
apart in the dark woods, when the doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as
budding physician, must accompany him.

'You see, Mister O'Hara, I do not know what the deuce-an' all I shall
do when I find our sporting friends; but if you will kindly keep within
sight of my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for cadastral survey, I
shall feel much better.'

Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks. 'This is not my country,
hakim. Easier, I think, to find one louse in a bear-skin.'

'Oah, thatt is my strong points. There is no hurry for Hurree. They
were at Leh not so long ago. They said they had come down from the
Karakorum with their heads and horns and all. I am onlee afraid they
will have sent back all their letters and compromising things from Leh
into Russian territoree. Of course they will walk away as far to the
East as possible--just to show that they were never among the Western
States. You do not know the Hills?' He scratched with a twig on the
earth. 'Look! They should have come in by Srinagar or Abbottabad.
Thatt is their short road--down the river by Bunji and Astor. But they
have made mischief in the West. So'--he drew a furrow from left to
right--'they march and they march away East to Leh (ah! it is cold
there), and down the Indus to Hanle (I know that road), and then down,
you see, to Bushahr and Chini valley. That is ascertained by process
of elimination, and also by asking questions from people that I cure so
well. Our friends have been a long time playing about and producing
impressions. So they are well known from far off. You will see me
catch them somewhere in Chini valley. Please keep your eye on the
umbrella.'

It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the valleys and round the
mountain sides, and in due time the lama and Kim, who steered by
compass, would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders at eventide.
'We came by such and such a way!' The lama would throw a careless
finger backward at the ridges, and the umbrella would expend itself in
compliments.

They crossed a snowy pass in cold moonlight, when the lama, mildly
chaffing Kim, went through up to his knees, like a Bactrian camel--the
snow-bred, shag-haired sort that came into the Kashmir Serai. They
dipped across beds of light snow and snow-powdered shale, where they
took refuge from a gale in a c