nothing to do with the--trickery."

"What did he say--what is he going to do about it?" The Major was
anxious.

"He had known about it all the time--his men have trailed every step
we have taken, watched everything we have done."

A slow blush mounted the Major's rugged features as he thought of the
possibility that secret onlookers had witnessed his meeting with Ahma
just before the wedding ceremony when he had sought to teach her the
White Man's customs of caress. The flush persisted as he turned to
Terry.

"There's one thing I forgot to ask you to buy for me. I want a good
talking machine, with plenty of records." He paused, then continued
abstractedly: "She can keep it in her house."

Terry looked up in astonishment. "In _her_ house? Aren't you both
going to live in the same house?"

"No. Not till you send a missionary up here to marry us. I don't
figure that two days of savage rites constitutes a marriage--but I'm
going to have a deuce of a time trying to explain it to Ahma!"

Terry nodded sympathetically and walked the springy floor a dozen
times, nonplussed by the Major's dilemma. Pausing in his preoccupation
before the open window he noted vaguely that the nuptial fires were
yellowing before the approach of dawn: a moment and he started
violently as the solution struck him and he whirled upon the dejected
groom with beaming countenance.

"Say!" he shouted, "I'm certainly not going down with you two only
half-married--she a bride and you not a groom! You forget that as
Senior Inspector of Constabulary I am an ex-officio Justice of the
Peace! Come on!"

He lifted the Major by the arm and shot him through the doorway with
an exuberant shove that left him no alternative save a jarring leap to
the ground. Terry landed beside him as light as a cat, and catching
him by the elbow he hurried him on through the woods and into the
fading light of the big fires that burned before Ohto's house.

Terry, his eyes dancing joyously, broke up the dance with which a
hundred Hill People were keeping the ceremonial pot boiling, and
despatched two women to fetch the bride, who had sought a brief
respite from the interminable ritual. Shortly Ahma appeared before
them, her dark eyes shadowed with fatigue, but radiant with
exaltation.

Understanding from Terry's few words that the Major desired that they
be united also in accordance with the rites of his own people, she
stepped quietly before Terry and took the Major's ou