isplayed their wares and their cunning; Hunza tribesmen,
half-clad Chitralis, wild-eyed savages from Yagistan mingled in the
narrow stone streets with the civilized Persian and Turcoman from beyond
the mountains. Kashmir sepoys, an untidy race, still took their ease in
the sun, and soldiers of South India from the Imperial Service Troops
showed their odd accoutrements and queer race mixtures. The place
looked and smelled like a kind of home, and Lewis, with one eye on the
gun-cases and one on the great hills, forgot his heart-sickness and had
leisure for the plain joys of expectation.

"I am going to get to work at once," he said, when he had washed the
dust out of his eyes and throat. "I shall go and call on the Logans
this very minute, and I expect we shall see Thwaite and some of the
soldiers at the club to-night." So George, much against his will, was
compelled to don a fresh suit and suffer himself to be conducted to the
bungalow of the British Resident.

The Sahib was from home, at Gilgit, but Madame would receive the
strangers. So the two found themselves in a drawing-room aggressively
English in its air, shaking hands with a small woman with kind eyes and
a washed-out complexion.

Mrs. Logan was unaffectedly glad to see them. She had that trick of
dominating her surroundings which English ladies seem to bear to the
uttermost ends of the globe. There, in that land of snows and rock,
with savage tribesmen not thirty miles away, and the British
frontier-line something less than fifty, she gave them tea and talked
small talk with the ease and gusto of an English country home.

"It's the most unfortunate thing in the world," she cried. "If you had
only wired, Gilbert would have stayed, but as it is he has gone down to
Gilgit about some polo ponies, and won't be back for two days. Things
are so humdrum and easy-going up here that one loses interest in one's
profession. Gilbert has nothing to do except arrange with the foreman
of the coolies who are making roads, and hold stupid courts, and consult
with Captain Thwaite and the garrison people. The result is that the
poor man has become crazy about golf, and wastes all his spare money on
polo ponies. You can have no idea what a godsend a new face is to us
poor people. It is simply delightful to see you again, Mr. Haystoun.
You left us about sixteen months ago, didn't you? Did you enjoy going
back?"

Lewis said yes, with an absurd sense of the humour of the question