I am more intimate than most people with the hill tribes. Well, let
this be the guarantee of my news, but do not ask how I got it, for I
cannot betray friends. Some of these, the Bada-Mawidi to wit, are
meditating mischief. The Forza camp, which I think you have visited--a
place some twenty miles off--is too near those villages to be safe. So
to-morrow at latest they have planned to make a general attack upon it,
and, unless the garrison were prepared, I should fear for the result,
for they are the most cunning scoundrels in the world. What puzzles me
is how they have ever screwed up the courage for such a move, for lately
they were very much in fear of the Government. It appears as if they
looked for backing from over the frontier. You will say that this
proves your theory; but to me it merely seems as if some maniac of the
Gromchevtsky type had got among them. In any case I wish something
could be done. My duties take me away at once, and in a very different
direction, but perhaps you could find some means of putting the camp on
their guard. I should be sorry to hear of a tragedy; also I should be
sorry to see the Bada-Mawidi get into trouble. They are foolish
blackguards, but amusing.

Yours most sincerely,

ARTHUR MARKER.

Lewis read the strange letter several times through, then passed it to
George. George read it with difficulty, not being accustomed to a
flowing frontier hand. "Jolly decent of him, I call it," was his
remark.

"I would give a lot to know what to make of it. The man is playing some
game, but what the deuce it is I can't fathom."

"I suppose we had better get up to that Forza place as soon as we can."

"I think not," said Lewis.

"The man's honest, surely?

"But he is also clever. Remember who he is. He may wish to get us out
of the way. I don't suppose that he can possibly fear us, but he may
want the coast clear from suspicious spectators. Besides, I don't see
the good of Forza. It is not the part of the hills I want to explore.
There can be no frontier danger there, and at the worst there can be
nothing more than a little tribal disturbance. Now what on earth would
Russia gain by moving the tribes there, except as a blind?"

"Still, you know, the man admits all that in his letter. And if the
people up there are going to be in trouble we ought to go and give them
notice."

"I'll take an hour to think over it, and then I'll go and see Thwaite.
He was to be back this morning."

L