son of "Pukka"
Cunnigan feel, before he reached his heritage, that he was going up to
something worth his while. To quote his own north-country metaphor, he
meant to "make the colt come up the bit." He meant that "Chota" Cunnigan
should have a proper sense of his own importance, and should chafe at
restraint, to the end that when his chance did come to prove himself he
would jump at it. Envy, he calculated--the unrighteous envy of men less
fortunately placed--would make a good beginning. And it did, though
hardly in the way he calculated.

Young Cunningham, tight-lipped to keep himself from grinning like a
child, determined to prove himself worthy of the better fortune; and
Mahommed Gunga would have cursed into his black beard in disgust had
he known of the private resolutions being formed to obey orders to the
letter and obtain the good will of his seniors. The one thing that the
grim old Rajput wished for his protege was jealousy! He wanted him so
well hated by the "nabobs" who had grown crusty and incompetent in high
command that life for him in any northern garrison would be impossible.

Throughout the two months' journey to the north Mahommed Gunga never
left a stone unturned to make Cunningham believe himself much more than
ordinary clay. All along the trunk road, that trails by many thousand
towns and listens to a hundred languages, whatever good there was was
Cunningham's. Whichever room was best in each dak-bungalow, whichever
chicken the kansamah least desired to kill, whoever were the stoutest
dhoolee-bearers in the village, whichever horse had the easiest
paces--all were Cunningham's. Respect were his, and homage and
obeisance, for the Rajput saw to it.

Of evenings, while they rested, but before the sun went down, the old
risaldar would come with his naked sabre and defy "Chota" Cunnigan to
try to touch him. For five long weeks he tried each evening, the Rajput
never doing anything but parry,--changing his sabre often to the other
hand and grinning at the schoolboy swordsmanship--until one evening, at
the end of a more than usually hard-fought bout, the youngster pricked
him, lunged, and missed slitting his jugular by the merest fraction of
an inch.

"Ho!" laughed Mahommed Gunga later, as he sluiced out the cut while his
own adherents stood near by and chaffed him. "The cub cuts his teeth,
then! Soon it will be time to try his pluck."

"Be gentle with him, risaldar-sahib; a good cub dies as easily as a