ggars howl when they're sent away from William. She's pulled
down a bit, but so are we all. Now, when do you suppose you'll be able
to move?"

"I can't come into camp in this state. I won't," he replied pettishly.

"Well, you are rather a sight, but from what I gathered there it seemed
to me they'd be glad to see you under any conditions. I'll look over
your work here, if you like, for a couple of days, and you can pull
yourself together while Faiz Ullah feeds you up."

Scott could walk dizzily by the time Hawkins's inspection was ended,
and he flushed all over when Jim said of his work that it was "not
half bad," and volunteered, further, that he had considered Scott his
right-hand man through the famine, and would feel it his duty to say as
much officially.

So they came back by rail to the old camp; but there were no crowds
near it; the long fires in the trenches were dead and black, and the
famine-sheds were almost empty.

"You see!" said Jim. "There isn't much more to do. 'Better ride up and
see the wife. They've pitched a tent for you. Dinner's at seven. I've
some work here."

Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott came to William
in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting at the dining-tent door, her
hands in her lap, white as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her
hair. There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all that
William could say was: "My word, how pulled down you look!"

"I've had a touch of fever. You don't look very well yourself."

"Oh, I'm fit enough. We've stamped it out. I suppose you know?"

Scott nodded. "We shall all be returned in a few weeks. Hawkins told
me."

"Before Christmas, Mrs. Jim says. Sha'n't you be glad to go back? I can
smell the wood-smoke already"; William sniffed. "We shall be in time
for all the Christmas doings. I don't suppose even the Punjab Government
would be base enough to transfer Jack till the new year?"

"It seems hundreds of years ago--the Punjab and all that--doesn't it?
Are you glad you came?"

"Now it's all over, yes. It has been ghastly here, though. You know we
had to sit still and do nothing, and Sir Jim was away so much."

"Do nothing! How did you get on with the milking?"

"I managed it somehow--after you taught me. 'Remember?"

Then the talk stopped with an almost audible jar. Still no Mrs. Jim.

"That reminds me, I owe you fifty rupees for the condensed-milk. I
thought perhaps you'd be coming here when