weakness of the plain-dwellers and the fertility
of their soil, the hill-men had not been satisfied with paying these
winter visits, and, after remaining as uninvited guests, returning to
their own place without having made a domicile in the plains. They began
to regard the land on which they temporarily settled as theirs, and by
and by exacted tribute from the rightful owners. Thus they became
possessed of two homes, one for the winter, one for the summer.
Naturally this seizure of property was little to the liking of the
plain-dwellers. They made some resistance and fought the oppressors, but
were no match in arms for the more warlike hill-men. When, however, the
Panjab was incorporated in the dominions of John Company, some of the
dispossessed land-owners took advantage of the well-known respect of the
British for law to make an attempt to recover their property through the
agency of their new rulers; and it was to show cause why he should not
yield the lands he held in the plain that Minghal Khan, one of the hill
chieftains, had been summoned before the deputy-commissioner.

Minghal obeyed the summons grudgingly. In the hills he was free, and
owned no master save God; it irked him that any one, least of all the
sahib-log, infidels, eaters of pigs, should question his rights in the
plains; for though he knew that the lands in dispute were not his by
inheritance, yet might was right, and if the plain-men were not strong
enough to hold them--why, so much the worse for them. And when he came
down from the hills to argue the case before the British commissioner,
he begged his nearest neighbour, Rahmut Khan of Shagpur, to accompany
him and give him at least moral support. Rahmut did not refuse this
request; but he was above all things a warrior; he had no skill in
reasoning, like his more wily neighbour Minghal; and while the latter
was using all his eloquence, every trick and artifice of which he was
capable, to persuade Mr. Barclay that forcible possession was of more
account than title-deeds, Rahmut amused himself by talking to and
playing with the deputy-commissioner's little son. The boy's mother had
died in Lahore some little while before, and his father kept him
constantly in his company, even when his duties called him into remote
parts of his district.

Rahmut, like all his race, was passionately fond of children; the
fearlessness of the bright-eyed boy appealed to him, and day after day,
while Minghal was wait