have done the same thing. That was
nothing!"

"Strange that when a white man does an honorable deed he lies about it!"
said Juggut Khan. "That was not nothing, sahib, and you know it was not
nothing! You know that from the heat and the exertion you were ill for
more than a month afterward. And you know that there were others there,
of my own people, who might have done what you did, and did not!"

"But, hang it all! Why drag up a little thing like this?"

"Because, sahib, I might have no other opportunity, and--"

"Well? And what?"

"And the Rajput boy whom you carried was my son!"

III.

The finding of a remount for Juggut Khan was not so troublesome as might
have been supposed. The rumors and plans and whispered orders for the
coming struggle had been passed around the countryside for months past,
and every man who owned a horse had it stalled safely 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.
They had held their tongues while Juggut Khan was there, because they
happened to know Brown too well to