"The Government will thank us when the work is done," said Shere Ali
enthusiastically.

"The Government will be in no hurry to let us begin," replied Linforth
drily. "There is a Resident at your father's court. Your father is
willing, and yet there's not a coolie on the road."

"Yes, but you will get your way," and again confidence rang in the voice
of the Chilti prince.

"It will not be I," answered Linforth. "It will be the Road. The power of
the Road is beyond the power of any Government."

"Yes, I remember and I understand." Shere Ali lit his pipe and lay back
among the straw. "At first I did not understand what the words meant. Now
I know. The power of the Road is great, because it inspires men to strive
for its completion."

"Or its mastery," said Linforth slowly. "Perhaps one day on the other
side of the Hindu Kush, the Russians may covet it--and then the Road will
go on to meet them."

"Something will happen," said Shere Ali. "At all events something
will happen."

The shadows of the evening found them still debating what complication
might force the hand of those in authority. But always they came back to
the Russians and a movement of troops in the Pamirs. Yet unknown to both
of them the something else had already happened, though its consequences
were not yet to be foreseen. A storm had delayed them for a day in a hut
upon the Meije. They went out of the hut. The sky had cleared; and in
the sunset the steep buttress of the Promontoire ran sharply up to the
Great Wall; above the wall the small square patch of ice sloped to the
base of the Grand Pic and beyond the deep gap behind that pinnacle the
long serrated ridge ran out to the right, rising and falling, to the
Doight de Dieu.

There were some heavy icicles overhanging the Great Wall, and
Linforth looked at them anxiously. There was also still a little snow
upon the rocks.

"It will be possible," said Peter, cheerily. "Tomorrow night we shall
sleep in La Grave."

"Yes, yes, of course," said his brother.

They walked round the hut, looked for a little while down the stony
valley des Etancons, with its one green patch up which they had toiled
from La Berarde the day before, and returned to watch the purple flush of
the sunset die off the crags of the Meije. But the future they had
planned was as a vision before their eyes, and even along the high cliffs
of the Dauphine the road they were to make seemed to wind and climb.

"It would be strange