dur who had
raised and led a regiment and licked peace into a warring countryside;
and though he was that much bigger than his father had been, they dubbed
him "Chota" Cunnigan on the instant. And that means "Little Cunningham."

He had yet to learn that a Rajput, be he poorest of the poor, admits no
superior on earth. He did not know yet that these men had come, at one
man's private cost, all down the length of India to meet him. Nobody had
told him that the feudal spirit dies harder in northern Hindustan than
it ever did in England, or that the Rajput clans cohere more tightly
than the Scots. The Rajput belief that honest service--unselfishly
given--is the greatest gift that any man may bring--that one who has
received what he considers favors will serve the giver's son--was an
unknown creed to him as yet.

But he stood and looked those six men in the eye, and liked them. And
they, before they had as much as heard him speak, knew him for a soldier
and loved him as he stood.

They hung sickly scented garlands round his neck, and kissed his hand
in turn, and spoke to him thereafter as man to man. They had found their
goal worth while, and they bore him off to his hotel in clattering glee,
riding before him as men who have no doubt of the honor that they
pay themselves. No other of the homesick subalterns drove away with a
six-man escort to clear the way and scatter sparks!

They careered round through the narrow gate of the hotel courtyard as
though a Viceroy at least were in the trap behind them; and Mahommed
Gunga--six medaled, strapping feet of him--dismounted and held out an
arm for him to take when he alighted. The hotel people understood at
once that Somebody from Somewhere had arrived.

Young Cunningham had never yet been somebody. The men who give their
lives for India are nothing much at home, and their sons are even less.
Scarcely even at school, when they had made him captain of the team, had
he felt the feel of homage and the subtle flattery that undermines a
bad man's character; at schools in England they confer honors but take
simultaneous precautions. He was green to the dangerous influence of
feudal loyalty, but he quitted himself well, with reserve and dignity.

"He is good! He will do!" swore Mahommed Gunga fiercely, for the other
emotions are meant for women only.

"He is better than the best!"

"We will make a man of this one!"

"Did you mark how he handed me his purse to defray expenses?"