near him, for use when the hour should come.

There were country-ponies and Arabs and Kathiawaris and Khaubulis
among which to pick, and though the average run of them was worse
than merely bad, and though both best and worst were hidden away
whenever possible, good horses were discoverable. Within an hour,
Bill Brown; with the aid of his men, had routed out a Khaubuji
stallion for Juggut Khan, one fit to carry him against time the whole
of the way to Bholat.

The Rajput mounted him where Brown unearthed him, and watched the
signing of a scribbled-out receipt with a cynical smile.

"If he comes to claim his money for the horse," said Juggut Khan,
"I--even I, who am penniless--will pay him. Good-by, Brown sahib!"
He leaned over and grasped the sergeant by the hand. "Take my advice,
now. I know what is happening and what has happened. Fall back on
Bholat at once. Hurry! Seize horses or even asses for your men,
and ride in hotfoot. Salaam!"

He drove his right spur in, wheeled the horse and started across country
in the direction of Bholat at a hand-gallop, guiding himself solely
by the soldier's sixth sense of direction, and leaving the problem
of possible pitfalls to the horse.

"If what he says is true," said Brown, as the clattering hoof-beats
died away, "and I'm game to take my oath he wouldn't lie to me, I'd
give more than a little to have him with me for the next few hours!"

The men came clustering round him now, anxious for an explanation.