life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it
to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the
195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally
overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the
pebbles of the river-bed.

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were
discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a
look-out fired two shots.

"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning!
The pulton are out already and are coming across the plain! Get
away! Let us not be seen with the boy!"

The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was
fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared.

"The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie confidently to
Miss Allardyce, "and it's all wight. Don't cwy!"

He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his
father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss
Allardyce's lap.

And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and
rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met
him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the
presence of the men.

But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that