At certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the
mangers they will lick it up from the earth. He has gone back to
the Road again for a while. The madrissak wearied him. I knew it
would. Another time, I will take him upon the Road myself. Do not
be troubled, Creighton Sahib. It is as though a polo-pony, breaking
loose, ran out to learn the game alone.'

'Then he is not dead, think you?'

'Fever might kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A
monkey does not fall among trees.'

Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion ranged
alongside the Colonel.

'It is as I had thought,' said the horse-dealer. 'He has come
through Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me,
having learned in the bazar that I was here.'

'Read,' said the Colonel, with a sigh of relief. It was absurd that
a man of his position should take an interest in a little country-
bred vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the
train, and often in the past few months had caught himself thinking
of the queer, silent, self-possessed boy. His evasion, of course,
was the height of insolence, but it argued some resource and nerve.

Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the
cramped little plain, where none could come near unseen.

'"The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World -"'