PART II

So let us melt and make no noise,

No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;

’Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the Laity our love.

A VALEDICTION.

It was punishing work, even though he travelled by night and camped by

day; but within the limits of his vision there was no man whom Scott

could call master. He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins—freer, in fact, for

the Government held the Head of the Famine tied neatly to a

telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever regarded telegrams seriously, the

death-rate of that famine would have been much higher than it was.

At the end of a few days’ crawling Scott learned something of the size

of the India which he served, and it astonished him. His carts, as you

know, were loaded with wheat, millet, and barley, good food-grains

needing only a little grinding. But the people to whom he brought the

life-giving stuffs were rice-eaters. They could hull rice in their

mortars, but they knew nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North,

and less of the material that the white man convoyed so laboriously.

They clamoured for rice—unhusked paddy, such as they were accustomed

to—and, when they found that there was none, broke away weeping from

the sides of the cart. What was the use of these strange hard grains

that choked their throats? They would die. And then and there very many

of them kept their word. Others took their allowance, and bartered

enough millet to feed a man through a week for a few handfuls of rotten

rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few put their share into the

rice-mortars, pounded it, and made a paste with foul water; but they

were very few. Scott understood dimly that many people in the India of

the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain

Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or ear, and least of all

would have believed that in time of deadly need men could die at arm’s

length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain the

interpreters interpreted; in vain his two policemen showed in vigorous

pantomime what should be done. The starving crept away to their bark

and weeds, grubs, leaves, and clay, and left the open sacks untouched.

But sometimes the women laid their phantoms of children at Scott’s

feet, looking back as they staggered away.

Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these foreigners should

die, and it remained only to give orders to burn the dead. None the

less there was no reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and

Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a few lean goats

and had added them to the procession. That they might give milk for the

morning meal, he was feeding them on the good grain that these

imbeciles rejected. “Yes,” said Faiz Ullah; “if the Sahib thought fit,

a little milk might be given to some of the babies”; but, as the Sahib

well knew, babies were cheap, and, for his own part, Faiz Ullah held

that there was no Government order as to babies. Scott spoke forcefully

to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where

they could find them. This they most joyfully did, for it was a

recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed, the poor

brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days’ good

food—food such as human beings died for lack of—set them in milk again.

“But I am no goatherd,” said Faiz Ullah. “It is against my _izzat_ [my

honour].”

“When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of _izzat_,” Scott

replied. “Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the

camp, if I give the order.”

“Thus, then, it is done,” grunted Faiz Ullah, “if the Sahib will have

it so”; and he showed how a goat should be milked, while Scott stood

over him.

“Now we will feed them,” said Scott; “twice a day we will feed them”;

and he bowed his back to the milking, and took a horrible cramp.

When you have to keep connection unbroken between a restless mother of

kids and a baby who is at the point of death, you suffer in all your

system. But the babies were fed. Each morning and evening Scott would

solemnly lift them out one by one from their nest of gunny-bags under

the cart-tilts. There were always many who could do no more than

breathe, and the milk was dropped into their toothless mouths drop by

drop, with due pauses when they choked. Each morning, too, the goats

were fed; and since they would straggle without a leader, and since the

natives were hirelings, Scott was forced to give up riding, and pace

slowly at the head of his flocks, accommodating his step to their

weaknesses. All this was sufficiently absurd, and he felt the absurdity

keenly; but at least he was saving life, and when the women saw that

their children did not die, they made shift to eat a little of the

strange foods, and crawled after the carts, blessing the master of the

goats.

“Give the women something to live for,” said Scott to himself, as he

sneezed in the dust of a hundred little feet, “and they’ll hang on

somehow. This beats William’s condensed-milk trick all to pieces. I

shall never live it down, though.”

He reached his destination very slowly, found that a rice-ship had come

in from Burmah, and that stores of paddy were available; found also an

overworked Englishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the carts,

set back to cover the ground he had already passed. He left some of the

children and half his goats at the famine-shed. For this he was not

thanked by the Englishman, who had already more stray babies than he

knew what to do with. Scott’s back was suppled to stooping now, and he

went on with his wayside ministrations in addition to distributing the

paddy. More babies and more goats were added unto him; but now some of

the babies wore rags, and beads round their wrists or necks. “_That_”

said the interpreter, as though Scott did not know, “signifies that

their mothers hope in eventual contingency to resume them offeecially.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Scott; but at the same time he marked,

with the pride of ownership, how this or that little Ramasawmy was

putting on flesh like a bantam. As the paddy-carts were emptied he

headed for Hawkins’s camp by the railway, timing his arrival to fit in

with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he had eaten at a cloth. He

had no desire to make any dramatic entry, but an accident of the sunset

ordered it that when he had taken off his helmet to get the evening

breeze, the low light should fall across his forehead, and he could not

see what was before him; while one waiting at the tent door beheld with

new eyes a young man, beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden

dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran

small naked Cupids. But she laughed—William, in a slate-coloured

blouse, laughed consumedly till Scott, putting the best face he could

upon the matter, halted his armies and bade her admire the

kindergarten. It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been

left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, fifteen hundred

miles to the north.

“They are coming on nicely,” said William. “We’ve only five-and-twenty

here now. The women are beginning to take them away again.”

“Are you in charge of the babies, then?”

“Yes—Mrs. Jim and I. We didn’t think of goats, though. We’ve been

trying condensed-milk and water.”

“Any losses?”

“More than I care to think of;” said William, with a shudder. “And

you?”

Scott said nothing. There had been many little burials along his

route—one cannot burn a dead baby—many mothers who had wept when they

did not find again the children they had trusted to the care of the

Government.

Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which Scott looked hungrily,

for he had a beard that he did not love. And when they sat down to

dinner in the tent he told his tale in few words, as it might have been

an official report. Mrs. Jim snuffled from time to time, and Jim bowed

his head judicially; but William’s grey eyes were on the clean-shaven

face, and it was to her that Scott seemed to appeal.

“Good for the Pauper Province!” said William, her chin on her hand, as

she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in,

and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the

well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse

which was the accepted evening-dress in camp.

“It was awfully absurd at times,” said Scott. “You see, I didn’t know

much about milking or babies. They’ll chaff my head off, if the tale

goes up North.”

“Let ’em,” said William, haughtily. “We’ve all done coolie-work since

we came. I know Jack has.” This was to Hawkins’s address, and the big

man smiled blandly.

“Your brother’s a highly efficient officer, William,” said he, “and

I’ve done him the honour of treating him as he deserves. Remember, I

write the confidential reports.”

“Then you must say that William’s worth her weight in gold,” said Mrs.

Jim. “I don’t know what we should have done without her. She has been

everything to us.” She dropped her hand upon William’s, which was rough

with much handling of reins, and William patted it softly. Jim beamed

on the company. Things were going well with his world. Three of his

more grossly incompetent men had died, and their places had been filled

by their betters. Every day brought the Rains nearer. They had put out

the famine in five of the Eight Districts, and, after all, the

death-rate had not been too heavy—things considered. He looked Scott

over carefully, as an ogre looks over a man, and rejoiced in his thews

and iron-hard condition.

“He’s just the least bit in the world tucked up,” said Jim to himself,

“but he can do two men’s work yet.” Then he was aware that Mrs. Jim was

telegraphing to him, and according to the domestic code the message

ran: “A clear case. Look at them!”

He looked and listened. All that William was saying was: “What can you

expect of a country where they call a _bhistee_ [a water-carrier] a

_tunni-cutch?_” and all that Scott answered was: “I shall be glad to

get back to the Club. Save me a dance at the Christmas Ball, won’t

you?”

“It’s a far cry from here to the Lawrence Hall,” said Jim. “Better turn

in early, Scott. It’s paddy-carts to-morrow; you’ll begin loading at

five.”

“Aren’t you going to give Mr. Scott a single day’s rest?”

“Wish I could, Lizzie, ’Fraid I can’t. As long as he can stand up we

must use him.”

“Well, I’ve had one Europe evening, at least. By Jove, I’d nearly

forgotten! What do I do about those babies of mine?”

“Leave them here,” said William—“we are in charge of that—and as many

goats as you can spare. I must learn how to milk now.”

“If you care to get up early enough to-morrow I’ll show you. I have to

milk, you see. Half of ’em have beads and things round their necks. You

must be careful not to take ’em off; in case the mothers turn up.”

“You forget I’ve had some experience here.”

“I hope to goodness you won’t overdo.” Scott’s voice was unguarded.

“I’ll take care of her,” said Mrs. Jim, telegraphing hundred-word

messages as she carried William off; while Jim gave Scott his orders

for the coming campaign. It was very late—nearly nine o’clock.

“Jim, you’re a brute,” said his wife, that night; and the Head of the

Famine chuckled.

“Not a bit of it, dear. I remember doing the first Jandiala Settlement

for the sake of a girl in a crinoline, and she was slender, Lizzie.

I’ve never done as good a piece of work since. _He_’ll work like a

demon.”

“But you might have given him one day.”

“And let things come to a head now? No, dear; it’s their happiest

time.”

“I don’t believe either of the darlings know what’s the matter with

them. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it lovely?”

“Getting up at three to learn to milk, bless her heart! Oh, ye Gods,

why must we grow old and fat?”

“She’s a darling. She has done more work under me—”

“Under _you!_ The day after she came she was in charge and you were her

subordinate. You’ve stayed there ever since; she manages you almost as

well as you manage me.”

“She doesn’t, and that’s why I love her. She’s as direct as a man—as

her brother.”

“Her brother’s weaker than she is. He’s always to me for orders; but

he’s honest, and a glutton for work. I confess I’m rather fond of

William, and if I had a daughter—”

The talk ended. Far away in the Derajat was a child’s grave more than

twenty years old, and neither Jim nor his wife spoke of it any more.

“All the same, you’re responsible,” Jim added, a moment’s silence.

“Bless ’em!” said Mrs. Jim, sleepily.

Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty cart, waked and

went about his work in silence; it seemed at that hour unkind to rouse

Faiz Ullah and the interpreter. His head being close to the ground, he

did not hear William till she stood over him in the dingy old

riding-habit, her eyes still heavy with sleep, a cup of tea and a piece

of toast in her hands. There was a baby on the ground, squirming on a

piece of blanket, and a six-year-old child peered over Scott’s

shoulder.

“Hai, you little rip,” said Scott, “how the deuce do you expect to get

your rations if you aren’t quiet?”

A cool white hand steadied the brat, who forthwith choked as the milk

gurgled into his mouth.

“Mornin’,” said the milker. “You’ve no notion how these little fellows

can wriggle.”

“Oh, yes, I have.” She whispered, because the world was asleep. “Only I

feed them with a spoon or a rag. Yours are fatter than mine. And you’ve

been doing this day after day?” The voice was almost lost.

“Yes; it was absurd. Now you try,” he said, giving place to the girl.

“Look out! A goat’s not a cow.”

The goat protested against the amateur, and there was a scuffle, in

which Scott snatched up the baby. Then it was all to do over again, and

William laughed softly and merrily. She managed, however, to feed two

babies, and a third.

“Don’t the little beggars take it well?” said Scott. “I trained ’em.”

They were very busy and interested, when lo! it was broad daylight, and

before they knew, the camp was awake, and they kneeled among the goats,

surprised by the day, both flushed to the temples. Yet all the round

world rolling up out of the darkness might have heard and seen all that

had passed between them.

“Oh,” said William, unsteadily, snatching up the tea and toast, “I had

this made for you. It’s stone-cold now. I thought you mightn’t have

anything ready so early. Better not drink it. It’s—it’s stone-cold.”

“That’s awfully kind of you. It’s just right. It’s awfully good of you,

really. I’ll leave my kids and goats with you and Mrs. Jim, and, of

course, any one in camp can show you about the milking.”

“Of course,” said William; and she grew pinker and pinker and statelier

and more stately, as she strode back to her tent, fanning herself with

the saucer.

There were shrill lamentations through the camp when the elder children

saw their nurse move off without them. Faiz Ullah unbent so far as to

jest with the policemen, and Scott turned purple with shame because

Hawkins, already in the saddle, roared.

A child escaped from the care of Mrs. Jim, and, running like a rabbit,

clung to Scott’s boot, William pursuing with long, easy strides.

“I will not go—I will not go!” shrieked the child, twining his feet

round Scott’s ankle. “They will kill me here. I do not know these

people.”

“I say,” said Scott, in broken Tamil, “I say, she will do you no harm.

Go with her and be well fed.”

“Come!” said William, panting, with a wrathful glance at Scott, who

stood helpless and, as it were, hamstrung.

“Go back,” said Scott quickly to William. “I’ll send the little chap

over in a minute.”

The tone of authority had its effect, but in a way Scott did not

exactly intend. The boy loosened his grasp, and said with gravity: “I

did not know the woman was thine. I will go.” Then he cried to his

companions, a mob of three-, four-, and five-year-olds waiting on the

success of his venture ere they stampeded: “Go back and eat. It is our

man’s woman. She will obey his orders.”

Jim collapsed where he sat; Faiz Ullah and the two policemen grinned;

and Scott’s orders to the cartmen flew like hail.

“That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is told in their

presence,” said Faiz Ullah. “The time comes that I must seek new

service. Young wives, especially such as speak our language and have

knowledge of the ways of the Police, make great trouble for honest

butlers in the matter of weekly accounts.”

What William thought of it all she did not say, but when her brother,

ten days later, came to camp for orders, and heard of Scott’s

performances, he said, laughing: “Well, that settles it. He’ll be

_Bakri_ Scott to the end of his days.” (_Bakri_ in the Northern

vernacular, means a goat.) “What a lark! I’d have given a month’s pay

to have seen him nursing famine babies. I fed some with _conjee_

[rice-water], but that was all right.”

“It’s perfectly disgusting,” said his sister, with blazing eyes. “A man

does something like—like that—and all you other men think of is to give

him an absurd nickname, and then you laugh and think it’s funny.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Jim, sympathetically.

“Well, _you_ can’t talk, William. You christened little Miss Demby the

Button-quail, last cold weather; you know you did. India’s the land of

nicknames.”

“That’s different,” William replied. “She was only a girl, and she

hadn’t done anything except walk like a quail, and she _does_. But it

isn’t fair to make fun of a man.”

“Scott won’t care,” said Martyn. “You can’t get a rise out of old

Scotty. I’ve been trying for eight years, and you’ve only known him for

three. How does he look?”

“He looks very well,” said William, and went away with a flushed cheek.

“_Bakri_ Scott, indeed!” Then she laughed to herself, for she knew her

country. “But it will be _Bakri_ all the same”; and she repeated it

under her breath several times slowly, whispering it into favour.

When he returned to his duties on the railway, Martyn spread the name

far and wide among his associates, so that Scott met it as he led his

paddy-carts to war. The natives believed it to be some English title of

honour, and the cart-drivers used it in all simplicity till Faiz Ullah,

who did not approve of foreign japes, broke their heads. There was very

little time for milking now, except at the big camps, where Jim had

extended Scott’s idea and was feeding large flocks on the useless

northern grains. Sufficient paddy had come now into the Eight Districts

to hold the people safe, if it were only distributed quickly, and for

that purpose no one was better than the big Canal officer, who never

lost his temper, never gave an unnecessary order, and never questioned

an order given. Scott pressed on, saving his cattle, washing their

galled necks daily, so that no time should be lost on the road;

reported himself with his rice at the minor famine-sheds, unloaded, and

went back light by forced night-march to the next distributing centre,

to find Hawkins’s unvarying telegram: “Do it again.” And he did it

again and again, and yet again, while Jim Hawkins, fifty miles away,

marked off on a big map the tracks of his wheels gridironing the

stricken lands. Others did well—Hawkins reported at the end they all

did well—but Scott was the most excellent, for he kept good coined

rupees by him, settled for his own cart-repairs on the spot, and ran to

meet all sorts of unconsidered extras, trusting to be recouped later

on. Theoretically, the Government should have paid for every shoe and

linchpin, for every hand employed in the loading; but Government

vouchers cash themselves slowly, and intelligent and efficient clerks

write at great length, contesting unauthorised expenditures of eight

annas. The man who wants to make his work a success must draw on his

own bank-account of money or other things as he goes.

“I told you he’d work,” said Jimmy to his wife, at the end of six

weeks. “He’s been in sole charge of a couple of thousand men up north,

on the Mosuhl Canal, for a year; but he gives less trouble than young

Martyn with his ten constables; and I’m morally certain—only Government

doesn’t recognise moral obligations—he’s spent about half his pay to

grease his wheels. Look at this, Lizzie, for one week’s work! Forty

miles in two days with twelve carts; two days’ halt building a

famine-shed for young Rogers. (Rogers ought to have built it himself,

the idiot!) Then forty miles back again, loading six carts on the way,

and distributing all Sunday. Then in the evening he pitches in a

twenty-page Demi-Official to me, saying the people where he is might be

‘advantageously employed on relief-work,’ and suggesting that he put

’em to work on some broken-down old reservoir he’s discovered, so as to

have a good water-supply when the Rains break. He thinks he can cauk

the dam in a fortnight. Look at his marginal sketches—aren’t they clear

and good? I knew he was _pukka_, but I didn’t know he was as _pukka_ as

this!”

“I must show these to William,” said Mrs. Jim. “The child’s wearing

herself out among the babies.”

“Not more than you are, dear. Well, another two months ought to see us

out of the wood. I’m sorry it’s not in my power to recommend you for a

V. C.”

William sat late in her tent that night, reading through page after

page of the square handwriting, patting the sketches of proposed

repairs to the reservoir, and wrinkling her eyebrows over the columns

of figures of estimated water-supply. “And he finds time to do all

this,” she cried to herself, “and—well, I also was present. I’ve saved

one or two babies.”

She dreamed for the twentieth time of the god in the golden dust, and

woke refreshed to feed loathsome black children, scores of them,

wastrels picked up by the wayside, their bones almost breaking their

skin, terrible and covered with sores.

Scott was not allowed to leave his cart-work, but his letter was duly

forwarded to the Government, and he had the consolation, not rare in

India, of knowing that another man was reaping where he had sown. That

also was discipline profitable to the soul.

“He’s much too good to waste on canals,” said Jimmy. “Any one can

oversee coolies. You needn’t be angry, William; he can—but I need my

pearl among bullock-drivers, and I’ve transferred him to the Khanda

district, where he’ll have it all to do over again. He should be

marching now.

“He’s _not_ a coolie,” said William, furiously. “He ought to be doing

his regulation work.”

“He’s the best man in his service, and that’s saying a good deal; but

if you _must_ use razors to cut grindstones, why, I prefer the best

cutlery.”

“Isn’t it almost time we saw him again?” said Mrs. Jim. “I’m sure the

poor boy hasn’t had a respectable meal for a month. He probably sits on

a cart and eats sardines with his fingers.”

“All in good time, dear. Duty before decency—wasn’t it Mr. Chucks said

that?”

“No; it was Midshipman Easy,” William laughed. “I sometimes wonder how

it will feel to dance or listen to a band again, or sit under a roof. I

can’t believe I ever wore a ball-frock in my life.”

“One minute,” said Mrs. Jim, who was thinking. “If he goes to Khanda,

he passes within five miles of us. Of course he’ll ride in.”

“Oh, no, he won’t,” said William.

“How do you know, dear?”

“It will take him off his work. He won’t have time.”

“He’ll make it,” said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle.

“It depends on his own judgment. There’s absolutely no reason why he

shouldn’t, if he thinks fit,” said Jim.

“He won’t see fit,” William replied, without sorrow or emotion. “It

wouldn’t be him if he did.”

“One certainly gets to know people rather well in times like these,”

said Jim, drily; but William’s face was serene as ever, and even as she

prophesied, Scott did not appear.

The Rains fell at last, late, but heavily; and the dry, gashed earth

was red mud, and servants killed snakes in the camp, where every one

was weather-bound for a fortnight—all except Hawkins, who took horse

and plashed about in the wet, rejoicing. Now the Government decreed

that seed-grain should be distributed to the people, as well as

advances of money for the purchase of new oxen; and the white men were

doubly worked for this new duty, while William skipped from brick to

brick laid down on the trampled mud, and dosed her charges with warming

medicines that made them rub their little round stomachs; and the milch

goats throve on the rank grass. There was never a word from Scott in

the Khanda district, away to the southeast, except the regular

telegraphic report to Hawkins. The rude country roads had disappeared;

his drivers were half mutinous; one of Martyn’s loaned policemen had

died of cholera; and Scott was taking thirty grains of quinine a day to

fight the fever that comes with the rain: but those were things Scott

did not consider necessary to report. He was, as usual, working from a

base of supplies on a railway line, to cover a circle of fifteen miles

radius, and since full loads were impossible, he took quarter-loads,

and toiled four times as hard by consequence; for he did not choose to

risk an epidemic which might have grown uncontrollable by assembling

villagers in thousands at the relief-sheds. It was cheaper to take

Government bullocks, work them to death, and leave them to the crows in

the wayside sloughs.

That was the time when eight years of clean living and hard condition

told, though a man’s head were ringing like a bell from the cinchona,

and the earth swayed under his feet when he stood and under his bed

when he slept. If Hawkins had seen fit to make him a bullock-driver,

that, he thought, was entirely Hawkins’s own affair. There were men in

the North who would know what he had done; men of thirty years’ service

in his own department who would say that it was “not half bad”; and

above, immeasurably above, all men of all grades, there was William in

the thick of the fight, who would approve because she understood. He

had so trained his mind that it would hold fast to the mechanical

routine of the day, though his own voice sounded strange in his own

ears, and his hands, when he wrote, grew large as pillows or small as

peas at the end of his wrists. That steadfastness bore his body to the

telegraph-office at the railway-station, and dictated a telegram to

Hawkins saying that the Khanda district was, in his judgment, now safe,

and he “waited further orders.”

The Madrassee telegraph-clerk did not approve of a large, gaunt man

falling over him in a dead faint, not so much because of the weight as

because of the names and blows that Faiz Ullah dealt him when he found

the body rolled under a bench. Then Faiz Ullah took blankets, quilts,

and coverlets where he found them, and lay down under them at his

master’s side, and bound his arms with a tent-rope, and filled him with

a horrible stew of herbs, and set the policeman to fight him when he

wished to escape from the intolerable heat of his coverings, and shut

the door of the telegraph-office to keep out the curious for two nights

and one day; and when a light engine came down the line, and Hawkins

kicked in the door, Scott hailed him weakly but in a natural voice, and

Faiz Ullah stood back and took all the credit.

“For two nights, Heaven-born, he was _pagal_” said Faiz Ullah. “Look at

my nose, and consider the eye of the policeman. He beat us with his

bound hands; but we sat upon him, Heaven-born, and though his words

were _tez_, we sweated him. Heaven-born, never has been such a sweat!

He is weaker now than a child; but the fever has gone out of him, by

the grace of God. There remains only my nose and the eye of the

constabeel. Sahib, shall I ask for my dismissal because my Sahib has

beaten me?” And Faiz Ullah laid his long thin hand carefully on Scott’s

chest to be sure that the fever was all gone, ere he went out to open

tinned soups and discourage such as laughed at his swelled nose.

“The district’s all right,” Scott whispered. “It doesn’t make any

difference. You got my wire? I shall be fit in a week. ’Can’t

understand how it happened. I shall be fit in a few days.”

“You’re coming into camp with us,” said Hawkins.

“But look here—but—”

“It’s all over except the shouting. We sha’n’t need you Punjabis any

more. On my honour, we sha’n’t. Martyn goes back in a few weeks;

Arbuthnot’s returned already; Ellis and Clay are putting the last

touches to a new feeder-line the Government’s built as relief-work.

Morten’s dead—he was a Bengal man, though; you wouldn’t know him. ’Pon

my word, you and Will—Miss Martyn—seem to have come through it as well

as anybody.”

“Oh, how is she, by-the-way?” The voice went up and down as he spoke.

“Going strong when I left her. The Roman Catholic Missions are adopting

the unclaimed babies to turn them into little priests; the Basil

Mission is taking some, and the mothers are taking the rest. You should

hear the little beggars 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.”

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 you were transferred to the

Khanda district, and I could pay you then; but you didn’t.”

“I passed within five miles of the camp, but it was in the middle of a

march, you see, and the carts were breaking down every few minutes, and

I couldn’t get ’em over the ground till ten o’clock that night. I

wanted to come awfully. You knew I did, didn’t you?”

“I—believe—I—did,” said William, facing him with level eyes. She was no

longer white.

“Did you understand?”

“Why you didn’t ride in? Of course I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you couldn’t, of course. I knew that.”

“Did you care?”

“If you had come in—but I knew you wouldn’t—but if you _had_, I should

have cared a great deal. You know I should.”

“Thank God I didn’t! Oh, but I wanted to! I couldn’t trust myself to

ride in front of the carts, because I kept edging ’em over here, don’t

you know?”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” said William, contentedly. “Here’s your fifty.”

Scott bent forward and kissed the hand that held the greasy notes. Its

fellow patted him awkwardly but very tenderly on the head.

“And _you_ knew, too, didn’t you?” said William, in a new voice.

“No, on my honour, I didn’t. I hadn’t the—the cheek to expect anything

of the kind, except... I say, were you out riding anywhere the day I

passed by to Khanda?”

William nodded, and smiled after the manner of an angel surprised in a

good deed.

“Then it was just a speck I saw of your habit in the—”

“Palm-grove on the Southern cart-road. I saw your helmet when you came

up from the mullah by the temple—just enough to be sure that you were

all right. D’ you care?”

This time Scott did not kiss her hand, for they were in the dusk of the

dining-tent, and, because William’s knees were trembling under her, she

had to sit down in the nearest chair, where she wept long and happily,

her head on her arms; and when Scott imagined that it would be well to

comfort her, she needing nothing of the kind, she ran to her own tent;

and Scott went out into the world, and smiled upon it largely and

idiotically. But when Faiz Ullah brought him a drink, he found it

necessary to support one hand with the other, or the good whisky and

soda would have been spilled abroad. There are fevers and fevers.

But it was worse—much worse—the strained, eye-shirking talk at dinner

till the servants had withdrawn, and worst of all when Mrs. Jim, who

had been on the edge of weeping from the soup down, kissed Scott and

William, and they drank one whole bottle of champagne, hot, because

there was no ice, and Scott and William sat outside the tent in the

starlight till Mrs. Jim drove them in for fear of more fever.

Apropos of these things and some others William said: “Being engaged is

abominable, because, you see, one has no official position. We must be

thankful we’ve lots of things to do.”

“Things to do!” said Jim, when that was reported to him. “They’re

neither of them any good any more. I can’t get five hours’ work a day

out of Scott. He’s in the clouds half the time.”

“Oh, but they’re so beautiful to watch, Jimmy. It will break my heart

when they go. Can’t you do anything for him?”

“I’ve given the Government the impression—at least, I hope I have—that

he personally conducted the entire famine. But all he wants is to get

on to the Luni Canal Works, and William’s just as bad. Have you ever

heard ’em talking of barrage and aprons and wastewater? It’s their

style of spooning, I suppose.”

Mrs. Jim smiled tenderly. “Ah, that’s in the intervals—bless ’em.”

And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad daylight, while men

picked up the pieces and put them neatly away of the Famine in the

Eight Districts.

Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern December, the

layers of wood-smoke, the dusty grey-blue of the tamarisks, the domes

of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the

mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William, wrapped in a

_poshteen_—a silk-embroidered sheepskin jacket trimmed with rough

astrakhan—looked out with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated

joyously. The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the overpopulated Hindu

South, was done with. Here was the land she knew and loved, and before

her lay the good life she understood, among folk of her own caste and

mind.

They were picking them up at almost every station now—men and women

coming in for the Christmas Week, with racquets, with bundles of

polo-sticks, with dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers and

saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like William’s, for the

Northern cold is as little to be trifled with as the Northern heat. And

William was among them and of them, her hands deep in her pockets, her

collar turned up over her ears, stamping her feet on the platforms as

she walked up and down to get warm, visiting from carriage to carriage

and everywhere being congratulated. Scott was with the bachelors at the

far end of the train, where they chaffed him mercilessly about feeding

babies and milking goats; but from time to time he would stroll up to

William’s window, and murmur: “Good enough, isn’t it?” and William

would answer with sighs of pure delight: “Good enough, indeed.” The

large open names of the home towns were good to listen to. Umballa,

Ludianah, Phillour, Jullundur, they rang like the coming marriage-bells

in her ears, and William felt deeply and truly sorry for all strangers

and outsiders—visitors, tourists, and those fresh-caught for the

service of the country.

It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave the Christmas

Ball, William was, unofficially, you might say, the chief and honoured

guest among the Stewards, who could make things very pleasant for their

friends. She and Scott danced nearly all the dances together, and sat

out the rest in the big dark gallery overlooking the superb teak floor,

where the uniforms blazed, and the spurs clinked, and the new frocks

and four hundred dancers went round and round till the draped flags on

the pillars flapped and bellied to the whirl of it.

About midnight half a dozen men who did not care for dancing came over

from the Club to play “Waits,” and that was a surprise the Stewards had

arranged—before any one knew what had happened, the band stopped, and

hidden voices broke into “Good King Wenceslaus,” and William in the

gallery hummed and beat time with her foot:

“Mark my footsteps well, my page,

Tread thou in them boldly.

Thou shalt feel the winter’s rage

Freeze thy blood less coldly!”

“Oh, I hope they are going to give us another! Isn’t it pretty, coming

out of the dark in that way? Look—look down. There’s Mrs. Gregory

wiping her eyes!”

“It’s like Home, rather,” said Scott. “I remember—”

“Hsh! Listen!—dear.” And it began again:

“When shepherds watched their flocks by night—”

“A-h-h!” said William, drawing closer to Scott.

All seated on the ground,

The Angel of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around.

‘Fear not,’ said he (for mighty dread

Had seized their troubled mind);

‘Glad tidings of great joy I bring

To you and all mankind.’

This time it was William that wiped her eyes.

･007

A locomotive is, next to a marine engine, the most sensitive thing man

ever made; and No. ･007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red

paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone

like a fireman’s helmet, and his cab might have been a hard-wood-finish

parlour. They had run him into the round-house after his trial—he had

said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the overhead

travelling-crane—the big world was just outside; and the other locos

were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle of bold,

unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and mutter of the steam

mounting in the gauges—scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve

lifted a little—and would have given a month’s oil for leave to crawl

through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit beneath him. ･007

was an eight-wheeled “American” loco, slightly different from others of

his type, and as he stood he was worth ten thousand dollars on the

Company’s books. But if you had bought him at his own valuation, after

half an hour’s waiting in the darkish, echoing round-house, you would

have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars

and ninety-eight cents.

A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cow-catcher and a fire-box that

came down within three inches of the rail, began the impolite game,

speaking to a Pittsburgh Consolidation, who was visiting.

“Where did this thing blow in from?” he asked, with a dreamy puff of

light steam.

“it’s all I can do to keep track of our makes,” was the answer,

“without lookin’ after _your_ back-numbers. Guess it’s something Peter

Cooper left over when he died.”

･007 quivered; his steam was getting up, but he held his tongue. Even a

hand-car knows what sort of locomotive it was that Peter Cooper

experimented upon in the far-away Thirties. It carried its coal and

water in two apple-barrels, and was not much bigger than a bicycle.

Then up and spoke a small, newish switching-engine, with a little step

in front of his bumper-timber, and his wheels so close together that he

looked like a broncho getting ready to buck.

“Something’s wrong with the road when a Pennsylvania gravel-pusher

tells us anything about our stock, _I_ think. That kid’s all right.

Eustis designed him, and Eustis designed me. Ain’t that good enough?”

･007 could have carried the switching-loco round the yard in his

tender, but he felt grateful for even this little word of consolation.

“We don’t use hand-cars on the Pennsylvania,” said the Consolidation.

“That—er—peanut-stand is old enough and ugly enough to speak for

himself.”

“He hasn’t bin spoken to yet. He’s bin spoke _at_. Hain’t ye any

manners on the Pennsylvania?” said the switching-loco.

“You ought to be in the yard, Poney,” said the Mogul, severely. “We’re

all long-haulers here.”

“That’s what you think,” the little fellow replied. “You’ll know more

’fore the night’s out. I’ve bin down to Track 17, and the freight

there—oh, Christmas!”

“I’ve trouble enough in my own division,” said a lean, light suburban

loco with very shiny brake-shoes. “My commuters wouldn’t rest till they

got a parlourcar. They’ve hitched it back of all, and it hauls worsen a

snow-plough. I’ll snap her off someday sure, and then they’ll blame

every one except their foolselves. They’ll be askin’ me to haul a

vestibuled next!”

“They made you in New Jersey, didn’t they?” said Poney. “Thought so.

Commuters and truck-wagons ain’t any sweet haulin’, but I tell _you_

they’re a heap better ’n cuttin’ out refrigerator-cars or oil-tanks.

Why, I’ve hauled—”

“Haul! You?” said the Mogul, contemptuously. “It’s all you can do to

bunt a cold-storage car up the yard. Now, I—” he paused a little to let

the words sink in—“I handle the Flying Freight—e-leven cars worth just

anything you please to mention. On the stroke of eleven I pull out; and

I’m timed for thirty-five an hour. Costly-perishable-fragile,

immediate—that’s me! Suburban traffic’s only but one degree better than

switching. Express freight’s what pays.”

“Well, I ain’t given to blowing, as a rule,” began the Pittsburgh

Consolidation.

“No? You was sent in here because you grunted on the grade,” Poney

interrupted.

“Where I grunt, you’d lie down, Poney: but, as I was saying, I don’t

blow much. Notwithstandin’, _if_ you want to see freight that is

freight moved lively, you should see me warbling through the

Alleghanies with thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brakemen

fightin’ tramps so’s they can’t attend to my tooter. I have to do all

the holdin’ back then, and, though I say it, I’ve never had a load get

away from me yet. _No_, sir. Haulin’s’s one thing, but judgment and

discretion’s another. You want judgment in my business.”

“Ah! But—but are you not paralysed by a sense of your overwhelming

responsibilities?” said a curious, husky voice from a corner.

“Who’s that?” ･007 whispered to the Jersey commuter.

“Compound—experiment—N.G. She’s bin switchin’ in the B. & A. yards for

six months, when she wasn’t in the shops. She’s economical (_I_ call it

mean) in her coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem! I presume you

found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, after your New York season?”

“I am never so well occupied as when I am alone.” The Compound seemed

to be talking from half-way up her smoke-stack.

“Sure,” said the irreverent Poney, under his breath. “They don’t hanker

after her any in the yard.”

“But, with my constitution and temperament—my work lies in Boston—I

find your _outrecuidance_—”

“Outer which?” said the Mogul freight. “Simple cylinders are good

enough for me.”

“Perhaps I should have said _faroucherie_,” hissed the Compound.

“I don’t hold with any make of papier-mache wheel,” the Mogul insisted.

The Compound sighed pityingly, and said no more.

“Git ’em all shapes in this world, don’t ye?” said Poney, “that’s

Mass’chusetts all over. They half start, an’ then they stick on a

dead-centre, an’ blame it all on other folk’s ways o’ treatin’ them.

Talkin’ o’ Boston, Comanche told me, last night, he had a hot-box just

beyond the Newtons, Friday. That was why, _he_ says, the Accommodation

was held up. Made out no end of a tale, Comanche did.”

“If I’d heard that in the shops, with my boiler out for repairs, I’d

know ’t was one o’ Comanche’s lies,” the New Jersey commuter snapped.

“Hot-box! Him! What happened was they’d put an extra car on, and he

just lay down on the grade and squealed. They had to send 127 to help

him through. Made it out a hotbox, did he? Time before that he said he

was ditched! Looked me square in the headlight and told me that as cool

as—as a water-tank in a cold wave. Hot-box! You ask 127 about

Comanche’s hot-box. Why, Comanche he was side-tracked, and 127 (_he_

was just about as mad as they make ’em on account o’ being called out

at ten o’clock at night) took hold and snapped her into Boston in

seventeen minutes. Hot-box! Hot fraud! that’s what Comanche is.”

Then ･007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the saying is, for

he asked what sort of thing a hot-box might be?

“Paint my bell sky-blue!” said Poney, the switcher. “Make me a

surface-railroad loco with a hard-wood skirtin’-board round my wheels.

Break me up and cast me into five-cent sidewalk-fakirs’ mechanical

toys! Here’s an eight-wheel coupled ’American’ don’t know what a

hot-box is! Never heard of an emergency-stop either, did ye? Don’t know

what ye carry jack-screws for? You’re too innocent to be left alone

with your own tender. Oh, you—you flatcar!”

There was a roar of escaping steam before any one could answer, and

･007 nearly blistered his paint off with pure mortification.

“A hot-box,” began the Compound, picking and choosing her words as

though they were coal, “a hotbox is the penalty exacted from

inexperience by haste. Ahem!”

“Hot-box!” said the Jersey Suburban. “It’s the price you pay for going

on the tear. It’s years since I’ve had one. It’s a disease that don’t

attack shorthaulers, as a rule.”

“We never have hot-boxes on the Pennsylvania,” said the Consolidation.

“They get ’em in New York—same as nervous prostration.”

“Ah, go home on a ferry-boat,” said the Mogul. “You think because you

use worse grades than our road ’u’d allow, you’re a kind of Alleghany

angel. Now, I’ll tell you what you... Here’s my folk. Well, I can’t

stop. See you later, perhaps.”

He rolled forward majestically to the turn-table, and swung like a

man-of-war in a tideway, till he picked up his track. “But as for you,

you pea-green swiveling’ coffee-pot [this to ･007], you go out and

learn something before you associate with those who’ve made more

mileage in a week than you’ll roll up in a year.

Costly-perishable-fragile immediate—that’s me! S’ long.”

“Split my tubes if that’s actin’ polite to a new member o’ the

Brotherhood,” said Poney. “There wasn’t any call to trample on ye like

that. But manners was left out when Moguls was made. Keep up your fire,

kid, an’ burn your own smoke. ’Guess we’ll all be wanted in a minute.”

Men were talking rather excitedly in the roundhouse. One man, in a

dingy jersey, said that he hadn’t any locomotives to waste on the yard.

Another man, with a piece of crumpled paper in his hand, said that the

yard-master said that he was to say that if the other man said

anything, he (the other man) was to shut his head. Then the other man

waved his arms, and wanted to know if he was expected to keep

locomotives in his hip-pocket. Then a man in a black Prince Albert,

without a collar, came up dripping, for it was a hot August night, and

said that what _he_ said went; and between the three of them the

locomotives began to go, too—first the Compound; then the

Consolidation; then ･007.

Now, deep down in his fire-box, ･007 had cherished a hope that as soon

as his trial was done, he would be led forth with songs and shoutings,

and attached to a green-and-chocolate vestibuled flyer, under charge of

a bold and noble engineer, who would pat him on his back, and weep over

him, and call him his Arab steed. (The boys in the shops where he was

built used to read wonderful stories of railroad life, and ･007

expected things to happen as he had heard.) But there did not seem to

be many vestibuled fliers in the roaring, rumbling, electric-lighted

yards, and his engineer only said:

“Now, what sort of a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis loaded on to

this rig this time?” And he put the lever over with an angry snap,

crying: “Am I supposed to switch with this thing, hey?”

The collarless man mopped his head, and replied that, in the present

state of the yard and freight and a few other things, the engineer

would switch and keep on switching till the cows came home. ･007 pushed

out gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the clang of

his own bell almost made him jump the track. Lanterns waved, or danced

up and down, before and behind him; and on every side, six tracks deep,

sliding backward and forward, with clashings of couplers and squeals of

hand-brakes, were cars—more cars than ･007 had dreamed of. There were

oil-cars, and hay-cars, and stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and

ore-cars, and potato-cars with stovepipe-ends sticking out in the

middle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice water on the

tracks; ventilated fruit—and milk-cars; flatcars with truck-wagons full

of market-stuff; flat-cars loaded with reapers and binders, all red and

green and gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high

with strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock-plank, or bundles of

shingles; flat-cars creaking to the weight of thirty-ton castings,

angle-irons, and rivet-boxes for some new bridge; and hundreds and

hundreds and hundreds of box-cars loaded, locked, and chalked. Men—hot

and angry—crawled among and between and under the thousand wheels; men

took flying jumps through his cab, when he halted for a moment; men sat

on his pilot as he went forward, and on his tender as he returned; and

regiments of men ran along the tops of the box-cars beside him,

screwing down brakes, waving their arms, and crying curious things.

He was pushed forward a foot at a time; whirled backward, his rear

drivers clinking and clanking, a quarter of a mile; jerked into a

switch (yard-switches are _very_ stubby and unaccommodating), bunted

into a Red D, or Merchant’s Transport car, and, with no hint or

knowledge of the weight behind him, started up anew. When his load was

fairly on the move, three or four cars would be cut off, and ･007 would

bound forward, only to be held hiccupping on the brake. Then he would

wait a few minutes, watching the whirled lanterns, deafened with the

clang of the bells, giddy with the vision of the sliding cars, his

brake-pump panting forty to the minute, his front coupler lying

sideways on his cow-catcher, like a tired dog’s tongue in his mouth,

and the whole of him covered with half-burnt coal-dust.

“’Tisn’t so easy switching with a straight-backed tender,” said his

little friend of the round-house, bustling by at a trot. “But you’re

comin’ on pretty fair. Ever seen a flyin’ switch? No? Then watch me.”

Poney was in charge of a dozen heavy flat-cars. Suddenly he shot away

from them with a sharp “_Whutt!_” A switch opened in the shadows ahead;

he turned up it like a rabbit as it snapped behind him, and the long

line of twelve-foot-high lumber jolted on into the arms of a full-sized

road-loco, who acknowledged receipt with a dry howl.

“My man’s reckoned the smartest in the yard at that trick,” he said,

returning. “Gives me cold shivers when another fool tries it, though.

That’s where my short wheel-base comes in. Like as not you’d have your

tender scraped off if _you_ tried it.”

･007 had no ambitions that way, and said so.

“No? Of course this ain’t your regular business, but say, don’t you

think it’s interestin’? Have you seen the yard-master? Well, he’s the

greatest man on earth, an’ don’t you forget it. When are we through?

Why, kid, it’s always like this, day _an_’ night—Sundays an’ week-days.

See that thirty-car freight slidin’ in four, no, five tracks off? She’s

all mixed freight, sent here to be sorted out into straight trains.

That’s why we’re cuttin’ out the cars one by one.” He gave a vigorous

push to a west-bound car as he spoke, and started back with a little

snort of surprise, for the car was an old friend—an M. T. K. box-car.

“Jack my drivers, but it’s Homeless Kate! Why, Kate, ain’t there _no_

gettin’ you back to your friends? There’s forty chasers out for you

from your road, if there’s one. Who’s holdin’ you now?”

“Wish I knew,” whimpered Homeless Kate. “I belong in Topeka, but I’ve

bin to Cedar Rapids; I’ve bin to Winnipeg; I’ve bin to Newport News;

I’ve bin all down the old Atlanta and West Point; an’ I’ve bin to

Buffalo. Maybe I’ll fetch up at Haverstraw. I’ve only bin out ten

months, but I’m homesick—I’m just achin’ homesick.”

“Try Chicago, Katie,” said the switching-loco; and the battered old car

lumbered down the track, jolting: “I want to be in Kansas when the

sunflowers bloom.”

“Yard’s full o’ Homeless Kates an’ Wanderin’ Willies,” he explained to

･007. “I knew an old Fitchburg flat-car out seventeen months; an’ one

of ours was gone fifteen ’fore ever we got track of her. Dunno quite

how our men fix it. Swap around, I guess. Anyway, I’ve done _my_ duty.

She’s on her way to Kansas, via Chicago; but I’ll lay my next boilerful

she’ll be held there to wait consignee’s convenience, and sent back to

us with wheat in the fall.”

Just then the Pittsburgh Consolidation passed, at the head of a dozen

cars.

“I’m goin’ home,” he said proudly.

“Can’t get all them twelve on to the flat. Break ’em in half, Dutchy!”

cried Poney. But it was ･007 who was backed down to the last six cars,

and he nearly blew up with surprise when he found himself pushing them

on to a huge ferry-boat. He had never seen deep water before, and

shivered as the flat drew away and left his bogies within six inches of

the black, shiny tide.

After this he was hurried to the freight-house, where he saw the

yard-master, a smallish, white-faced man in shirt, trousers, and

slippers, looking down upon a sea of trucks, a mob of bawling truckmen,

and squadrons of backing, turning, sweating, spark-striking horses.

“That’s shippers’ carts loadin’ on to the receivin’ trucks,” said the

small engine, reverently. “But _he_ don’t care. He lets ’em cuss. He’s

the Czar-King-Boss! He says ’Please,’ and then they kneel down an’

pray. There’s three or four strings o’ today’s freight to be pulled

before he can attend to _them_. When he waves his hand that way, things

happen.”

A string of loaded cars slid out down the track, and a string of

empties took their place. Bales, crates, boxes, jars, carboys, frails,

cases, and packages flew into them from the freight-house as though the

cars had been magnets and they iron filings.

“Ki-yah!” shrieked little Poney. “Ain’t it great?”

A purple-faced truckman shouldered his way to the yard-master, and

shook his fist under his nose. The yard-master never looked up from his

bundle of freight receipts. He crooked his forefinger slightly, and a

tall young man in a red shirt, lounging carelessly beside him, hit the

truckman under the left ear, so that he dropped, quivering and

clucking, on a hay-bale.

“Eleven, seven, ninety-seven, L. Y. S.; fourteen ought ought three;

nineteen thirteen; one one four; seventeen ought twenty-one M. B.;

_and_ the ten westbound. All straight except the two last. Cut ’em off

at the junction. An’ _that’s_ all right. Pull that string.” The

yard-master, with mild blue eyes, looked out over the howling truckmen

at the waters in the moonlight beyond, and hummed:

“All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

_All_ things wise and wonderful,

The Lawd Gawd He made all!”

･007 moved out the cars and delivered them to the regular road-engine.

He had never felt quite so limp in his life before.

“Curious, ain’t it?” said Poney, puffing, on the next track. “You an’

me, if we got that man under our bumpers, we’d work him into red waste

an’ not know what we’d done; but-up there—with the steam hummin’ in his

boiler that awful quiet way...”

“_I_ know,” said ･007. “Makes me feel as if I’d dropped my Fire an’ was

getting cold. He _is_ the greatest man on earth.”

They were at the far north end of the yard now, under a switchtower,

looking down on the four-track way of the main traffic. The Boston

Compound was to haul ･007’s string to some far-away northern junction

over an indifferent road-bed, and she mourned aloud for the ninety-six

pound rails of the B. & A.

“You’re young; you’re young,” she coughed. “You don’t realise your

responsibilities.”

“Yes, he does,” said Poney, sharply; “but he don’t lie down under ’em.”

Then, with aside-spurt of steam, exactly like a tough spitting: “There

ain’t more than fifteen thousand dollars’ worth o’ freight behind her

anyway, and she goes on as if ’t were a hundred thousand—same as the

Mogul’s. Excuse me, madam, but you’ve the track.... She’s stuck on a

dead-centre again—bein’ specially designed not to.”

The Compound crawled across the tracks on a long slant, groaning

horribly at each switch, and moving like a cow in a snow-drift. There

was a little pause along the yard after her tail-lights had

disappeared; switches locked crisply, and every one seemed to be

waiting.

“Now I’ll show you something worth,” said Poney. “When the Purple

Emperor ain’t on time, it’s about time to amend the Constitution. The

first stroke of twelve is—”

“Boom!” went the clock in the big yard-tower, and far away ･007 heard a

full, vibrating “_Yah! Yah! Yah!_” A headlight twinkled on the horizon

like a star, grew an overpowering blaze, and whooped up the humming

track to the roaring music of a happy giant’s song:

“With a michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah!

Ein—zwei—drei—Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!

She climb upon der shteeple,

Und she frighten all der people.

Singin’ michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah!”

The last defiant “yah! yah!” was delivered a mile and a half beyond the

passenger-depot; but ･007 had caught one glimpse of the superb

six-wheel-coupled racing-locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of

the road—the gilt-edged Purple Emperor, the millionaires’ south-bound

express, laying the miles over his shoulder as a man peels a shaving

from a soft board. The rest was a blur of maroon enamel, a bar of white

light from the electrics in the cars, and a flicker of nickel-plated

hand-rail on the rear platform.

“Ooh!” said ･007.

“Seventy-five miles an hour these five miles. Baths, I’ve heard;

barber’s shop; ticker; and a library and the rest to match. Yes, sir;

seventy-five an hour! But he’ll talk to you in the round-house just as

democratic as I would. And I—cuss my wheel-base!—I’d kick clean off the

track at half his gait. He’s the Master of our Lodge. Cleans up at our

house. I’ll introdooce you some day. He’s worth knowin’! There ain’t

many can sing that song, either.”

･007 was too full of emotions to answer. He did not hear a raging of

telephone-bells in the switch-tower, nor the man, as he leaned out and

called to ･007’s engineer: “Got any steam?”

“’Nough to run her a hundred mile out o’ this, if I could,” said the

engineer, who belonged to the open road and hated switching.

“Then get. The Flying Freight’s ditched forty mile out, with fifty rod

o’ track ploughed up. No; no one’s hurt, but both tracks are blocked.

Lucky the wreckin’-car an’ derrick are this end of the yard. Crew ’ll

be along in a minute. Hurry! You’ve the track.”

“Well, I could jest kick my little sawed-off self,” said Poney, as ･007

was backed, with a bang, on to a grim and grimy car like a caboose, but

full of tools—a flatcar and a derrick behind it. “Some folks are one

thing, and some are another; but _you_’re in luck, kid. They push a

wrecking-car. Now, don’t get rattled. Your wheel-base will keep you on

the track, and there ain’t any curves worth mentionin’. Oh, say!

Comanche told me there’s one section o’ sawedged track that’s liable to

jounce ye a little. Fifteen an’ a half out, _after_ the grade at

Jackson’s crossin’. You’ll know it by a farmhouse an’ a windmill an’

five maples in the dooryard. Windmill’s west o’ the maples. An’ there’s

an eighty-foot iron bridge in the middle o’ that section with no

guard-rails. See you later. Luck!”

Before he knew well what had happened, ･007 was flying up the track

into the dumb, dark world. Then fears of the night beset him. He

remembered all he had ever heard of landslides, rain-piled boulders,

blown trees, and strayed cattle, all that the Boston Compound had ever

said of responsibility, and a great deal more that came out of his own

head. With a very quavering voice he whistled for his first

grade-crossing (an event in the life of a locomotive), and his nerves

were in no way restored by the sight of a frantic horse and a

white-faced man in a buggy less than a yard from his right shoulder.

Then he was sure he would jump the track; felt his flanges mounting the

rail at every curve; knew that his first grade would make him lie down

even as Comanche had done at the Newtons. He whirled down the grade to

Jackson’s crossing, saw the windmill west of the maples, felt the badly

laid rails spring under him, and sweated big drops all over his boiler.

At each jarring bump he believed an axle had smashed, and he took the

eighty-foot bridge without the guard-rail like a hunted cat on the top

of a fence. Then a wet leaf stuck against the glass of his headlight

and threw a flying shadow on the track, so that he thought it was some

little dancing animal that would feel soft if he ran over it; and

anything soft underfoot frightens a locomotive as it does an elephant.

But the men behind seemed quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing

carelessly from the caboose to the tender—even jesting with the

engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among the coal, and the

snatch of a song, something like this:

Oh, the Empire State must learn to wait,

And the Cannon-ball go hang!

When the West-bound’s ditched, and the tool-car’s hitched,

And it’s ’way for the Breakdown Gang (Tare-ra!)

’Way for the Breakdown Gang!

“Say! Eustis knew what he was doin’ when he designed this rig. She’s a

hummer. New, too.”

“Snff! Phew! She is new. That ain’t paint, that’s—”

A burning pain shot through ･007’s right rear driver—a crippling,

stinging pain.

“This,” said ･007, as he flew, “is a hot-box. Now I know what it means.

I shall go to pieces, I guess. My first road-run, too!”

“Het a bit, ain’t she?” the fireman ventured to suggest to the

engineer.

“She’ll hold for all we want of her. We’re ’most there. Guess you chaps

back had better climb into your car,” said the engineer, his hand on

the brake lever. “I’ve seen men snapped off—”

But the crew fled back with laughter. They had no wish to be jerked on

to the track. The engineer half turned his wrist, and ･007 found his

drivers pinned firm.

“Now it’s come!” said ･007, as he yelled aloud, and slid like a sleigh.

For the moment he fancied that he would jerk bodily from off his

underpinning.

“That must be the emergency-stop that Poney guyed me about,” he gasped,

as soon as he could think. “Hot-box-emergency-stop. They both hurt; but

now I can talk back in the round-house.”

He was halted, all hissing hot, a few feet in the rear of what doctors

would call a compound-comminuted car. His engineer was kneeling down

among his drivers, but he did not call ･007 his “Arab steed,” nor cry

over him, as the engineers did in the newspapers. He just bad worded

･007, and pulled yards of charred cotton-waste from about the axles,

and hoped he might some day catch the idiot who had packed it. Nobody

else attended to him, for Evans, the Mogul’s engineer, a little cut

about the head, but very angry, was exhibiting, by lantern-light, the

mangled corpse of a slim blue pig.

“’T were n’t even a decent-sized hog,” he said. “’T were a shote.”

“Dangerousest beasts they are,” said one of the crew. “Get under the

pilot an’ sort o’ twiddle ye off the track, don’t they?”

“Don’t they?” roared Evans, who was a red-headed Welshman. “You talk as

if I was ditched by a hog every fool-day o’ the week. _I_ ain’t friends

with all the cussed half-fed shotes in the State o’ New York. No,

indeed! Yes, this is him—an’ look what he’s done!”

It was not a bad night’s work for one stray piglet. The Flying Freight

seemed to have flown in every direction, for the Mogul had mounted the

rails and run diagonally a few hundred feet from right to left, taking

with him such cars as cared to follow. Some did not. They broke their

couplers and lay down, while rear cars frolicked over them. In that

game, they had ploughed up and removed and twisted a good deal of the

left-hand track. The Mogul himself had waddled into a corn-field, and

there he knelt—fantastic wreaths of green twisted round his crankpins;

his pilot covered with solid clods of field, on which corn nodded

drunkenly; his fire put out with dirt (Evans had done that as soon as

he recovered his senses); and his broken headlight half full of

half-burnt moths. His tender had thrown coal all over him, and he

looked like a disreputable buffalo who had tried to wallow in a general

store. For there lay scattered over the landscape, from the burst cars,

type-writers, sewing-machines, bicycles in crates, a consignment of

silver-plated imported harness, French dresses and gloves, a dozen

finely moulded hard-wood mantels, a fifteen-foot naphtha-launch, with a

solid brass bedstead crumpled around her bows, a case of telescopes and

microscopes, two coffins, a case of very best candies, some gilt-edged

dairy produce, butter and eggs in an omelette, a broken box of

expensive toys, and a few hundred other luxuries. A camp of tramps

hurried up from nowhere, and generously volunteered to help the crew.

So the brakemen, armed with coupler-pins, walked up and down on one

side, and the freight-conductor and the fireman patrolled the other

with their hands in their hip-pockets. A long-bearded man came out of a

house beyond the corn-field, and told Evans that if the accident had

happened a little later in the year, all his corn would have been

burned, and accused Evans of carelessness. Then he ran away, for Evans

was at his heels shrieking: “’T was his hog done it—his hog done it!

Let me kill him! Let me kill him!” Then the wrecking-crew laughed; and

the farmer put his head out of a window and said that Evans was no

gentleman.

But ･007 was very sober. He had never seen a wreck before, and it

frightened him. The crew still laughed, but they worked at the same

time; and ･007 forgot horror in amazement at the way they handled the

Mogul freight. They dug round him with spades; they put ties in front

of his wheels, and jack-screws under him; they embraced him with the

derrick-chain and tickled him with crowbars; while ･007 was hitched on

to wrecked cars and backed away till the knot broke or the cars rolled

clear of the track. By dawn thirty or forty men were at work, replacing

and ramming down the ties, gauging the rails and spiking them. By

daylight all cars who could move had gone on in charge of another loco;

the track was freed for traffic; and 007 had hauled the old Mogul over

a small pavement of ties, inch by inch, till his flanges bit the rail

once more, and he settled down with a clank. But his spirit was broken,

and his nerve was gone.

“’T weren’t even a hog,” he repeated dolefully; “’t were a shote; and

you—_you_ of all of ’em—had to help me on.”

“But how in the whole long road did it happen?” asked 007, sizzling

with curiosity.

“Happen! It didn’t happen! It just come! I sailed right on top of him

around that last curve—thought he was a skunk. Yes; he was all as

little as that. He hadn’t more ’n squealed once ’fore I felt my bogies

lift (he’d rolled right under the pilot), and I couldn’t catch the

track again to save me. Swivelled clean off, I was. Then I felt him

sling himself along, all greasy, under my left leadin’ driver, and, oh,

Boilers! that mounted the rail. I heard my flanges zippin’ along the

ties, an’ the next I knew I was playin’ ’Sally, Sally Waters’ in the

corn, my tender shuckin’ coal through my cab, an’ old man Evans lyin’

still an’ bleedin’ in front o’ me. Shook? There ain’t a stay or a bolt

or a rivet in me that ain’t sprung to glory somewhere.”

“Umm!” said 007. “What d’ you reckon you weigh?”

“Without these lumps o’ dirt I’m all of a hundred thousand pound.”

“And the shote?”

“Eighty. Call him a hundred pound at the outside. He’s worth about four

’n a half dollars. Ain’t it awful? Ain’t it enough to give you nervous

prostration? Ain’t it paralysin’? Why, I come just around that curve—”

and the Mogul told the tale again, for he was very badly shaken.

“Well, it’s all in the day’s run, I guess,” said 007, soothingly;

“an’—an’ a corn-field’s pretty soft fallin’.”

“If it had bin a sixty-foot bridge, an’ I could ha’ slid off into deep

water an’ blown up an’ killed both men, same as others have done, I

wouldn’t ha’ cared; but to be ditched by a shote—an’ you to help me

out—in a corn-field—an’ an old hayseed in his nightgown cussin’ me like

as if I was a sick truck-horse!... Oh, it’s awful! Don’t call me Mogul!

I’m a sewin’-machine, they’ll guy my sand-box off in the yard.”

And 007, his hot-box cooled and his experience vastly enlarged, hauled

the Mogul freight slowly to the roundhouse.

“Hello, old man! Bin out all night, hain’t ye?” said the irrepressible

Poney, who had just come off duty. “Well, I must say you look it.

Costly-perishable-fragile-immediate—that’s you! Go to the shops, take

them vine-leaves out o’ your hair, an’ git ’em to play the hose on

you.”

“Leave him alone, Poney,” said 007 severely, as he was swung on the

turn-table, “or I’ll—”

“’Didn’t know the old granger was any special friend o’ yours, kid. He

wasn’t over-civil to you last time I saw him.”

“I know it; but I’ve seen a wreck since then, and it has about scared

the paint off me. I’m not going to guy anyone as long as I steam—not

when they’re new to the business an’ anxious to learn. And I’m not

goin’ to guy the old Mogul either, though I did find him wreathed

around with roastin’-ears. ’T was a little bit of a shote—not a

hog—just a shote, Poney—no bigger’n a lump of anthracite—I saw it—that

made all the mess. Anybody can be ditched, I guess.”

“Found that out already, have you? Well, that’s a good beginnin’.” It

was the Purple Emperor, with his high, tight, plate-glass cab and green

velvet cushion, waiting to be cleaned for his next day’s fly.

“Let me make you two gen’lemen acquainted,” said Poney. “This is our

Purple Emperor, kid, whom you were admirin’ and, I may say, envyin’

last night. This is a new brother, worshipful sir, with most of his

mileage ahead of him, but, so far as a serving-brother can, I’ll answer

for him.”

“’Happy to meet you,” said the Purple Emperor, with a glance round the

crowded round-house. “I guess there are enough of us here to form a

full meetin’. Ahem! By virtue of the authority vested in me as Head of

the Road, I hereby declare and pronounce No. ･007 a full and accepted

Brother of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives, and as such

entitled to all shop, switch, track, tank, and round-house privileges

throughout my jurisdiction, in the Degree of Superior Flier, it bein’

well known and credibly reported to me that our Brother has covered

forty-one miles in thirty-nine minutes and a half on an errand of mercy

to the afflicted. At a convenient time, I myself will communicate to

you the Song and Signal of this Degree whereby you may be recognised in

the darkest night. Take your stall, newly entered Brother among

Locomotives!”

Now, in the darkest night, even as the Purple Emperor said, if you will

stand on the bridge across the freightyard, looking down upon the

four-track way, at 2:30 A. M., neither before nor after, when the White

Moth, that takes the overflow from the Purple Emperor, tears south with

her seven vestibuled cream-white cars, you will hear, as the yard-clock

makes the half-hour, a far-away sound like the bass of a violoncello,

and then, a hundred feet to each word,

“With a michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah!

Ein—zwei—drei—Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!

She climb upon der shteeple,

Und she frighten all der people,

Singin’ michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah!”

That is 007 covering his one hundred and fifty-six miles in two hundred

and twenty-one minutes.

THE MALTESE CAT

They had good reason to be proud, and better reason to be afraid, all

twelve of them; for though they had fought their way, game by game, up

the teams entered for the polo tournament, they were meeting the

Archangels that afternoon in the final match; and the Archangels men

were playing with half a dozen ponies apiece. As the game was divided

into six quarters of eight minutes each, that meant a fresh pony after

every halt. The Skidars’ team, even supposing there were no accidents,

could only supply one pony for every other change; and two to one is

heavy odds. Again, as Shiraz, the grey Syrian, pointed out, they were

meeting the pink and pick of the polo-ponies of Upper India, ponies

that had cost from a thousand rupees each, while they themselves were a

cheap lot gathered, often from country-carts, by their masters, who

belonged to a poor but honest native infantry regiment.

“Money means pace and weight,” said Shiraz, rubbing his black-silk nose

dolefully along his neat-fitting boot, “and by the maxims of the game

as I know it—”

“Ah, but we aren’t playing the maxims,” said The Maltese Cat. “We’re

playing the game; and we’ve the great advantage of knowing the game.

Just think a stride, Shiraz! We’ve pulled up from bottom to second

place in two weeks against all those fellows on the ground here. That’s

because we play with our heads as well as our feet.”

“It makes me feel undersized and unhappy all the same,” said Kittiwynk,

a mouse-coloured mare with a red brow-band and the cleanest pair of

legs that ever an aged pony owned. “They’ve twice our style, these

others.”

Kittiwynk looked at the gathering and sighed. The hard, dusty

polo-ground was lined with thousands of soldiers, black and white, not

counting hundreds and hundreds of carriages and drags and dogcarts, and

ladies with brilliant-coloured parasols, and officers in uniform and

out of it, and crowds of natives behind them; and orderlies on camels,

who had halted to watch the game, instead of carrying letters up and

down the station; and native horse-dealers running about on thin-eared

Biluchi mares, looking for a chance to sell a few first-class

polo-ponies. Then there were the ponies of thirty teams that had

entered for the Upper India Free-for-All Cup—nearly every pony of worth

and dignity, from Mhow to Peshawar, from Allahabad to Multan; prize

ponies, Arabs, Syrian, Barb, country-bred, Deccanee, Waziri, and Kabul

ponies of every colour and shape and temper that you could imagine.

Some of them were in mat-roofed stables, close to the polo-ground, but

most were under saddle, while their masters, who had been defeated in

the earlier games, trotted in and out and told the world exactly how

the game should be played.

It was a glorious sight, and the come and go of the little, quick

hooves, and the incessant salutations of ponies that had met before on

other polo-grounds or race-courses were enough to drive a four-footed

thing wild.

But the Skidars’ team were careful not to know their neighbours, though

half the ponies on the ground were anxious to scrape acquaintance with

the little fellows that had come from the North, and, so far, had swept

the board.

“Let’s see,” said a soft gold-coloured Arab, who had been playing very

badly the day before, to The Maltese Cat; “didn’t we meet in Abdul

Rahman’s stable in Bombay, four seasons ago? I won the Paikpattan Cup

next season, you may remember?”

“Not me,” said The Maltese Cat, politely. “I was at Malta then, pulling

a vegetable-cart. I don’t race. I play the game.”

“Oh!” said the Arab, cocking his tail and swaggering off.

“Keep yourselves to yourselves,” said The Maltese Cat to his

companions. “We don’t want to rub noses with all those goose-rumped

half-breeds of Upper India. When we’ve won this Cup they’ll give their

shoes to know us.”

“_We_ sha’n’t win the cup,” said Shiraz. “How do you feel?”

“Stale as last night’s feed when a muskrat has run over it,” said

Polaris, a rather heavy-shouldered grey; and the rest of the team

agreed with him.

“The sooner you forget that the better,” said The Maltese Cat,

cheerfully. “They’ve finished tiffin in the big tent. We shall be

wanted now. If your saddles are not comfy, kick. If your bits aren’t

easy, rear, and let the _saises_ know whether your boots are tight.”

Each pony had his _sais_, his groom, who lived and ate and slept with

the animal, and had betted a good deal more than he could afford on the

result of the game. There was no chance of anything going wrong, but to

make sure, each _sais_ was shampooing the legs of his pony to the last

minute. Behind the _saises_ sat as many of the Skidars’ regiment as had

leave to attend the match—about half the native officers, and a hundred

or two dark, black-bearded men with the regimental pipers nervously

fingering the big, beribboned bagpipes. The Skidars were what they call

a Pioneer regiment, and the bagpipes made the national music of half

their men. The native officers held bundles of polo-sticks, long

cane-handled mallets, and as the grand stand filled after lunch they

arranged themselves by ones and twos at different points round the

ground, so that if a stick were broken the player would not have far to

ride for a new one. An impatient British Cavalry Band struck up “If you

want to know the time, ask a p’leeceman!” and the two umpires in light

dust-coats danced out on two little excited ponies. The four players of

the Archangels’ team followed, and the sight of their beautiful mounts

made Shiraz groan again.

“Wait till we know,” said The Maltese Cat. “Two of ’em are playing in

blinkers, and that means they can’t see to get out of the way of their

own side, or they _may_ shy at the umpires’ ponies. They’ve _all_ got

white web-reins that are sure to stretch or slip!”

“And,” said Kittiwynk, dancing to take the stiffness out of her, “they

carry their whips in their hands instead of on their wrists. Hah!”

“True enough. No man can manage his stick and his reins and his whip

that way,” said The Maltese Cat. “I’ve fallen over every square yard of

the Malta ground, and _I_ ought to know.”

He quivered his little, flea-bitten withers just to show how satisfied

he felt; but his heart was not so light. Ever since he had drifted into

India on a troop-ship, taken, with an old rifle, as part payment for a

racing debt, The Maltese Cat had played and preached polo to the

Skidars’ team on the Skidars’ stony polo-ground. Now a polo-pony is

like a poet. If he is born with a love for the game, he can be made.

The Maltese Cat knew that bamboos grew solely in order that poloballs

might be turned from their roots, that grain was given to ponies to

keep them in hard condition, and that ponies were shod to prevent them

slipping on a turn. But, besides all these things, he knew every trick

and device of the finest game in the world, and for two seasons had

been teaching the others all he knew or guessed.

“Remember,” he said for the hundredth time, as the riders came up, “we

_must_ play together, and you _must_ play with your heads. Whatever

happens, follow the ball. Who goes out first?”

Kittiwynk, Shiraz, Polaris, and a short high little bay fellow with

tremendous hocks and no withers worth speaking of (he was called Corks)

were being girthed up, and the soldiers in the background stared with

all their eyes.

“I want you men to keep quiet,” said Lutyens, the captain of the team,

“and especially _not_ to blow your pipes.”

“Not if we win, Captain Sahib?” asked the piper.

“If we win you can do what you please,” said Lutyens, with a smile, as

he slipped the loop of his stick over his wrist, and wheeled to canter

to his place. The Archangels’ ponies were a little bit above themselves

on account of the many-coloured crowd so close to the ground. Their

riders were excellent players, but they were a team of crack players

instead of a crack team; and that made all the difference in the world.

They honestly meant to play together, but it is very hard for four men,

each the best of the team he is picked from, to remember that in polo

no brilliancy in hitting or riding makes up for playing alone. Their

captain shouted his orders to them by name, and it is a curious thing

that if you call his name aloud in public after an Englishman you make

him hot and fretty. Lutyens said nothing to his men, because it had all

been said before. He pulled up Shiraz, for he was playing “back,” to

guard the goal. Powell on Polaris was half-back, and Macnamara and

Hughes on Corks and Kittiwynk were forwards. The tough, bamboo ball was

set in the middle of the ground, one hundred and fifty yards from the

ends, and Hughes crossed sticks, heads up, with the Captain of the

Archangels, who saw fit to play forward; that is a place from which you

cannot easily control your team. The little click as the cane-shafts

met was heard all over the ground, and then Hughes made some sort of

quick wrist-stroke that just dribbled the ball a few yards. Kittiwynk

knew that stroke of old, and followed as a cat follows a mouse. While

the Captain of the Archangels was wrenching his pony round, Hughes

struck with all his strength, and next instant Kittiwynk was away,

Corks following close behind her, their little feet pattering like

raindrops on glass.

“Pull out to the left,” said Kittiwynk between her teeth; “it’s coming

your way, Corks!”

The back and half-back of the Archangels were tearing down on her just

as she was within reach of the ball. Hughes leaned forward with a loose

rein, and cut it away to the left almost under Kittiwynk’s foot, and it

hopped and skipped off to Corks, who saw that, if he was not quick it

would run beyond the boundaries. That long bouncing drive gave the

Archangels time to wheel and send three men across the ground to head

off Corks. Kittiwynk stayed where she was; for she knew the game. Corks

was on the ball half a fraction of a second before the others came up,

and Macnamara, with a backhanded stroke, sent it back across the ground

to Hughes, who saw the way clear to the Archangels’ goal, and smacked

the ball in before any one quite knew what had happened.

“That’s luck,” said Corks, as they changed ends. “A goal in three

minutes for three hits, and no riding to speak of.”

“Don’t know,” said Polaris. “We’ve made ’em angry too soon. Shouldn’t

wonder if they tried to rush us off our feet next time.”

“Keep the ball hanging, then,” said Shiraz. “That wears out every pony

that is not used to it.”

Next time there was no easy galloping across the ground. All the

Archangels closed up as one man, but there they stayed, for Corks,

Kittiwynk, and Polaris were somewhere on the top of the ball, marking

time among the rattling sticks, while Shiraz circled about outside,

waiting for a chance.

“_We_ can do this all day,” said Polaris, ramming his quarters into the

side of another pony. “Where do you think you’re shoving to?”

“I’ll—I’ll be driven in an _ekka_ if I know,” was the gasping reply,

“and I’d give a week’s feed to get my blinkers off. I can’t see

anything.”

“The dust is rather bad. Whew! That was one for my off-hock. Where’s

the ball, Corks?”

“Under my tail. At least, the man’s looking for it there! This is

beautiful. They can’t use their sticks, and it’s driving ’em wild. Give

old Blinkers a push and then he’ll go over.”

“Here, don’t touch me! I can’t see. I’ll—I’ll back out, I think,” said

the pony in blinkers, who knew that if you can’t see all round your

head, you cannot prop yourself against the shock.

Corks was watching the ball where it lay in the dust, close to his near

fore-leg, with Macnamara’s shortened stick tap-tapping it from time to

time. Kittiwynk was edging her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her

stump of a tail with nervous excitement.

“Ho! They’ve got it,” she snorted. “Let me out!” and she galloped like

a rifle-bullet just behind a tall lanky pony of the Archangels, whose

rider was swinging up his stick for a stroke.

“Not to-day, thank you,” said Hughes, as the blow slid off his raised

stick, and Kittiwynk laid her shoulder to the tall pony’s quarters, and

shoved him aside just as Lutyens on Shiraz sent the ball where it had

come from, and the tall pony went skating and slipping away to the

left. Kittiwynk, seeing that Polaris had joined Corks in the chase for

the ball up the ground, dropped into Polaris’ place, and then “time”

was called.

The Skidars’ ponies wasted no time in kicking or fuming. They knew that

each minute’s rest meant so much gain, and trotted off to the rails and

their _saises_, who began to scrape and blanket and rub them at once.

“Whew!” said Corks, stiffening up to get all the tickle of the big

vulcanite scraper. “If we were playing pony for pony, we would bend

those Archangels double in half an hour. But they’ll bring up fresh

ones and fresh ones and fresh ones after that—you see.”

“Who cares?” said Polaris. “We’ve drawn first blood. Is my hock

swelling?”

“Looks puffy,” said Corks. “You must have had rather a wipe. Don’t let

it stiffen. You ’ll be wanted again in half an hour.”

“What’s the game like?” said The Maltese Cat.

“Ground’s like your shoe, except where they put too much water on it,”

said Kittiwynk. “Then it’s slippery. Don’t play in the centre. There’s

a bog there. I don’t know how their next four are going to behave, but

we kept the ball hanging, and made ’em lather for nothing. Who goes

out? Two Arabs and a couple of country-breds! That’s bad. What a

comfort it is to wash your mouth out!”

Kitty was talking with a neck of a lather-covered soda-water bottle

between her teeth, and trying to look over her withers at the same

time. This gave her a very coquettish air.

“What’s bad?” said Grey Dawn, giving to the girth and admiring his

well-set shoulders.

“You Arabs can’t gallop fast enough to keep yourselves warm—that’s what

Kitty means,” said Polaris, limping to show that his hock needed

attention. “Are you playing back, Grey Dawn?”

“Looks like it,” said Grey Dawn, as Lutyens swung himself up. Powell

mounted The Rabbit, a plain bay country-bred much like Corks, but with

mulish ears. Macnamara took Faiz-Ullah, a handy, short-backed little

red Arab with a long tail, and Hughes mounted Benami, an old and sullen

brown beast, who stood over in front more than a polo-pony should.

“Benami looks like business,” said Shiraz. “How’s your temper, Ben?”

The old campaigner hobbled off without answering, and The Maltese Cat

looked at the new Archangel ponies prancing about on the ground. They

were four beautiful blacks, and they saddled big enough and strong

enough to eat the Skidars’ team and gallop away with the meal inside

them.

“Blinkers again,” said The Maltese Cat. “Good enough!”

“They’re chargers—cavalry chargers!” said Kittiwynk, indignantly.

“_They’ll_ never see thirteen-three again.”

“They’ve all been fairly measured, and they’ve all got their

certificates,” said The Maltese Cat, “or they wouldn’t be here. We must

take things as they come along, and keep your eyes on the ball.”

The game began, but this time the Skidars were penned to their own end

of the ground, and the watching ponies did not approve of that.

“Faiz-Ullah is shirking—as usual,” said Polaris, with a scornful grunt.

“Faiz-Ullah is eating whip,” said Corks. They could hear the

leather-thonged polo-quirt lacing the little fellow’s well-rounded

barrel. Then The Rabbit’s shrill neigh came across the ground.

“I can’t do all the work,” he cried, desperately.

“Play the game—don’t talk,” The Maltese Cat whickered; and all the

ponies wriggled with excitement, and the soldiers and the grooms

gripped the railings and shouted. A black pony with blinkers had

singled out old Benami, and was interfering with him in every possible

way. They could see Benami shaking his head up and down, and flapping

his under lip.

“There’ll be a fall in a minute,” said Polaris. “Benami is getting

stuffy.”

The game flickered up and down between goal-post and goal-post, and the

black ponies were getting more confident as they felt they had the legs

of the others. The ball was hit out of a little scrimmage, and Benami

and The Rabbit followed it, Faiz-Ullah only too glad to be quiet for an

instant.

The blinkered black pony came up like a hawk, with two of his own side

behind him, and Benami’s eye glittered as he raced. The question was

which pony should make way for the other, for each rider was perfectly

willing to risk a fall in a good cause. The black, who had been driven

nearly crazy by his blinkers, trusted to his weight and his temper; but

Benami knew how to apply his weight and how to keep his temper. They

met, and there was a cloud of dust. The black was lying on his side,

all the breath knocked out of his body. The Rabbit was a hundred yards

up the ground with the ball, and Benami was sitting down. He had slid

nearly ten yards on his tail, but he had had his revenge, and sat

cracking his nostrils till the black pony rose.

“That’s what you get for interfering. Do you want any more?” said

Benami, and he plunged into the game. Nothing was done that quarter,

because Faiz-Ullah would not gallop, though Macnamara beat him whenever

he could spare a second. The fall of the black pony had impressed his

companions tremendously, and so the Archangels could not profit by

Faiz-Ullah’s bad behaviour.

But as The Maltese Cat said when “time” was called, and the four came

back blowing and dripping, Faiz-Ullah ought to have been kicked all

round Umballa. If he did not behave better next time The Maltese Cat

promised to pull out his Arab tail by the roots and—eat it.

There was no time to talk, for the third four were ordered out.

The third quarter of a game is generally the hottest, for each side

thinks that the others must be pumped; and most of the winning play in

a game is made about that time.

Lutyens took over The Maltese Cat with a pat and a hug, for Lutyens

valued him more than anything else in the world; Powell had Shikast, a

little grey rat with no pedigree and no manners outside polo; Macnamara

mounted Bamboo, the largest of the team; and Hughes Who’s Who, _alias_

The Animal. He was supposed to have Australian blood in his veins, but

he looked like a clothes-horse, and you could whack his legs with an

iron crow-bar without hurting him.

They went out to meet the very flower of the Archangels’ team; and when

Who’s Who saw their elegantly booted legs and their beautiful satin

skins, he grinned a grin through his light, well-worn bridle.

“My word!” said Who’s Who. “We must give ’em a little football. These

gentlemen need a rubbing down.”

“No biting,” said The Maltese Cat, warningly; for once or twice in his

career Who’s Who had been known to forget himself in that way.

“Who said anything about biting? I’m not playing tiddly-winks. I’m

playing the game.”

The Archangels came down like a wolf on the fold, for they were tired

of football, and they wanted polo. They got it more and more. Just

after the game began, Lutyens hit a ball that was coming towards him

rapidly, and it rolled in the air, as a ball sometimes will, with the

whirl of a frightened partridge. Shikast heard, but could not see it

for the minute, though he looked everywhere and up into the air as The

Maltese Cat had taught him. When he saw it ahead and overhead he went

forward with Powell as fast as he could put foot to ground. It was then

that Powell, a quiet and level-headed man, as a rule, became inspired,

and played a stroke that sometimes comes off successfully after long

practice. He took his stick in both hands, and, standing up in his

stirrups, swiped at the ball in the air, Munipore fashion. There was

one second of paralysed astonishment, and then all four sides of the

ground went up in a yell of applause and delight as the ball flew true

(you could see the amazed Archangels ducking in their saddles to dodge

the line of flight, and looking at it with open mouths), and the

regimental pipes of the Skidars squealed from the railings as long as

the pipers had breath. Shikast heard the stroke; but he heard the head

of the stick fly off at the same time. Nine hundred and ninety-nine

ponies out of a thousand would have gone tearing on after the ball with

a useless player pulling at their heads; but Powell knew him, and he

knew Powell; and the instant he felt Powell’s right leg shift a trifle

on the saddle-flap, he headed to the boundary, where a native officer

was frantically waving a new stick. Before the shouts had ended, Powell

was armed again.

Once before in his life The Maltese Cat had heard that very same stroke

played off his own back, and had profited by the confusion it wrought.

This time he acted on experience, and leaving Bamboo to guard the goal

in case of accidents, came through the others like a flash, head and

tail low—Lutyens standing up to ease him—swept on and on before the

other side knew what was the matter, and nearly pitched on his head

between the Archangels’ goal-post as Lutyens kicked the ball in after a

straight scurry of a hundred and fifty yards. If there was one thing

more than another upon which The Maltese Cat prided himself, it was on

this quick, streaking kind of run half across the ground. He did not

believe in taking balls round the field unless you were clearly

overmatched. After this they gave the Archangels five-minuted football;

and an expensive fast pony hates football because it rumples his

temper. Who’s Who showed himself even better than Polaris in this game.

He did not permit any wriggling away, but bored joyfully into the

scrimmage as if he had his nose in a feed-box and was looking for

something nice. Little Shikast jumped on the ball the minute it got

clear, and every time an Archangel pony followed it, he found Shikast

standing over it, asking what was the matter.

“If we can live through this quarter,” said The Maltese Cat, “I sha’n’t

care. Don’t take it out of yourselves. Let them do the lathering.”

So the ponies, as their riders explained afterwards, “shut-up.” The

Archangels kept them tied fast in front of their goal, but it cost the

Archangels’ ponies all that was left of their tempers; and ponies began

to kick, and men began to repeat compliments, and they chopped at the

legs of Who’s Who, and he set his teeth and stayed where he was, and

the dust stood up like a tree over the scrimmage until that hot quarter

ended.

They found the ponies very excited and confident when they went to

their saises; and The Maltese Cat had to warn them that the worst of

the game was coming.

“Now _we_ are all going in for the second time,” said he, “and _they_

are trotting out fresh ponies. You think you can gallop, but you’ll

find you can’t; and then you’ll be sorry.”

“But two goals to nothing is a halter-long lead,” said Kittiwynk,

prancing.

“How long does it take to get a goal?” The Maltese Cat answered. “For

pity’s sake, don’t run away with a notion that the game is half-won

just because we happen to be in luck now! They’ll ride you into the

grand stand, if they can; you must _not_ give ’em a chance. Follow the

ball.”

“Football, as usual?” said Polaris. “My hock’s half as big as a

nose-bag.”

“Don’t let them have a look at the ball, if you can help it. Now leave

me alone. I must get all the rest I can before the last quarter.”

He hung down his head and let all his muscles go slack, Shikast,

Bamboo, and Who’s Who copying his example.

“Better not watch the game,” he said. “We aren’t playing, and we shall

only take it out of ourselves if we grow anxious. Look at the ground

and pretend it’s fly-time.”

They did their best, but it was hard advice to follow. The hooves were

drumming and the sticks were rattling all up and down the ground, and

yells of applause from the English troops told that the Archangels were

pressing the Skidars hard. The native soldiers behind the ponies

groaned and grunted, and said things in undertones, and presently they

heard a long-drawn shout and a clatter of hurrahs!

“One to the Archangels,” said Shikast, without raising his head.

“Time’s nearly up. Oh, my sire and dam!”

“Faiz-Ullah,” said The Maltese Cat, “if you don’t play to the last nail

in your shoes this time, I’ll kick you on the ground before all the

other ponies.”

“I’ll do my best when my time comes,” said the little Arab, sturdily.

The _saises_ looked at each other gravely as they rubbed their ponies’

legs. This was the time when long purses began to tell, and everybody

knew it. Kittiwynk and the others came back, the sweat dripping over

their hooves and their tails telling sad stories.

“They’re better than we are,” said Shiraz. “I knew how it would be.”