I had been staying in Ranipur of the plains while I considered
the question of getting to Upper Kashmir by the route from Simla
along the old way to Chinese Tibet where I would touch Shipki in
the Dalai Lama's territory and then pass on to Zanskar and so
down to Kashmir - a tremendous route through the Himalaya and a
crowning experience of the mightiest mountain scenery in the
world. I was at Ranipur for the purpose of consulting my old
friend Olesen, now an irrigation official in the Rampur district
- a man who had made this journey and nearly lost his life in
doing it. It is not now perhaps so dangerous as it was, and my
life was of no particular value to any one but myself, and the
plan interested me.

I pass over the long discussions of ways and means in the
blinding heat of Ranipur. Olesen put all his knowledge at my
service and never uttered a word of the envy that must have
filled him as he looked at the distant snows cool and luminous in
blue air, and, shrugging good-natured shoulders, spoke of the
work that lay before him on the burning plains until the terrible
summer should drag itself to a close. We had vanquished the
details and were smoking in comparative silence one night on the
veranda, when he said in his slow reflective way;

"You don't like the average hotel, Ormond, and you'll like it
still less up Simla way with all the Simla crowd of grass-widows
and fellows out for as good a time as they can cram into the hot
weather. I wonder if I could get you a permit for The House in
the Woods while you re waiting to fix up your men and route for
Shipki."