village on the line of route the
troops had found their work cut out for them. That they carried it out
gallantly and effectively need hardly be said, since we are dealing
with the pick of India's soldiers, the Punjab Frontier Force.

Their daily march led them along broken tracks or boulder-strewn beds
of torrents, winding through a land where "the face of God is a
rock";--a land feigning death, yet alive with hidden foes who
announced their presence from time to time by the snick of a
breech-bolt, the whing of a bullet, or a concerted rush upon the
rear-guard from some conveniently narrow ravine.

Little interruptions of this sort helped to keep all ranks on the
alert, and to make things cheerful generally; but they also took up
time. And although the middle of March found them back within
twenty-one miles of Kohat, there seemed little hope of quieting the
country under another week or two at least.

On the evening of the 16th, after two days of skirmishing and a broken
night under the stars, imperative need of water compelled them to
encamp at the open end of a valley whose enclosing heights narrowed
abruptly to the northward into an ugly-looking gorge.

Tents sprang up right and left; lines for horses and mules established
themselves in less time than it would take the uninitiated to see
where and how the thing could be done; and that eighth wonder of the
world, the native cook, achieved a four-course dinner with a mud oven,
army rations, a small supply of looted fowls, and a large supply of
ingenuity. A party of cavalry, having reconnoitred the ravines
branching off into higher hills, reported no signs of the enemy. A
cordon of sentries was told off for duty; and the posting of strong
pickets on the near hill-tops, and in the neighbourhood of the camp
itself, completed the night's arrangements. Clanking of accoutrements,
jangle of harness, and all the subdued hum of human life, died away
into stillness; lights dropped out one by one; and the valley was
given over to silence and a multitude of stars.

Touched into silver here and there by the ethereal radiance--for
starshine is a reality in India--the scene presented a Dantesque
mingling of beauty and terror,--the twin elements of life, which are
"only one, not two."

At a little distance behind the clustering tents the ground sloped
boldly upward to summits dark with patches of stunted forest; and
beyond these again the snow-peaks of the Safed Koh mountains