ll not permit it. Am I
explicit enough?"

"You are explicit enough."

Skag wheeled on the path and walked away from the police commissioner
under a sharp revelation that if he didn't get away at once, he would
do a thing he had never been inclined to do before. He was amazed by
his own fury. Unconsciously he spoke aloud:

"I never wanted to----"

"_Remember, it is not necessary to touch the unclean._"

Low tones of strange vibration. Skag looked up. A brown-robed man
stood before him. (The long straight lines of the garment were made of
a material hand-woven of camel's hair, known in the High Himalayas as
_puttoo_.) The quiet face was in chiselled lines. The level dark eyes
were looking deep into the place where Skag's soul lived. Skag was
intensely conscious that he stood in a Presence. He endured the eyes.
They made him feel better. The robed man spoke again:

"I speak to give you assurance that those you have served will be cared
for. Also, a responsibility may fall upon you. If you accept, a great
good will come to you in this life."

"I will do what I can."

"_Peace be with thee._"

"Shall I see you again?"

"Never."

Skag stood aside and the robed man walked toward the tent.

Skag went back to Poona. Carlin's eldest brother Roderick Deal had not
come yet. Still waiting, a week later, he walked one morning on the
stone causeway, which is a most attractive unit in the architecture of
Poona's great waterworks, and filled his eyes with the Ghat vistas
toward the north and west. Joyous dog tones made him glance back. It
was Nels, straining forward on a heavy chain-leash in the old cook's
hand.

"Let him go."

Now Skag noticed that the dog moved with some effort, possibly with
some pain; but when he arrived, Nels reared his mighty body and set his
paws on Skag's two shoulders. Skag hugged him and eased him down. The
old cook handed Skag a note. It read:

To the Wonder Man, by the hand of Bhanah the cook, who is a gift to the
Man from the gods. Together with Nels the beautiful, a gift to the Man
from Eleanor Beatrice (Hichens)--who is free!

Bhanah the cook will tell his master the rest. Save this, that Eleanor
Beatrice is grateful with her full heart to the Man.

He is to remember that he has been adopted by Nels. He is to walk
softly because he is on the way to be adopted--of course it is past
belief, but also it is past question--by the mightiest of all mystic
orders, w