If they pressed him, he would point to his medal ribbons, that he
always wore. "The British gave me those for fighting against the
northern tribes beyond the Himalayas," he would tell them. "The
southern tribes--Bengalis of the south and east--would give better
picking than mere medal ribbons!"

They were not all sure of him. They were not all satisfied why he
should ride on to Peshawur, and decline to stay with them and talk good
sedition.

"I would see how the British are!" he told them. And he told the
truth. But they were not quite satisfied; he would have made a
splendid leader to have kept among them, until he--too--became too
powerful and would have to be deposed in turn.

His own holding was a long way from Peshawur, and he was no rich man
who could afford at a mere whim to ride two long days' march beyond his
goal. Nor was he, as he had explained to Miss McClean, a
letter-carrier; he would get no more than the merest thanks for
delivering her letters to where they could be included in the
Government mail-bag. Yet he left the road that would have led him
homeward to his left, and carried on--quickening his pace as he
neared the frontier garrison town, and wasting, then, no time at all on
seeking information. Nobody supposed that the Pathans and the other
frontier tribes were anything but openly rebellious, and he would have
been an idiot to ask questions about their loyalty.

Because of their disloyalty, and the ever-present danger that they
were, the biggest British garrison in India had to be kept cooped up in