Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier senses
all on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace within
a month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity to
the men who looked for it to try to "take the conceit out of the cub,
by gad."

"They "--everybody spoke of them as "they"--conceived the brilliant
idea of confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked
experience to cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which
had long ago proved too difficult for themselves, and awaited
confidently the outcome--the crass mistake, or oversight, or mere
misfortune that, with the aid of a possible court martial, would reduce
him to a proper state of humbleness.

Peshawur, the greatest garrison in northern India, was there on
sufferance, apparently. For lack of energetic men in authority to deal
with them, the border robbers plundered while the troops remained
cooped up within the unhealthiest station on the list. The government
itself, with several thousand troops to back it up, was paying
blackmail to the border thieves! There was not a government bungalow
in all Peshawur that did not have its "watchman," hired from over the
border, well paid to sleep on the veranda lest his friends should come
and take tribute in an even more unseemly manner.

The younger men, whose sense of fitness had not yet been rotted by
climate and system and prerogative, swore at the condition; there were
one or two men higher up, destined to make history, whose voices,
raised in emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of "Peace! Peace
is the thing to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these
three are the keys of rule." They failed to realize that cowardice was