copper cooking vessel, lest the ice-bound breath of the mountains
freeze it before it could reach its destination. The fire itself was
small, and gave out little heat: for in the heart of the glaciers,
sixteen hundred feet up, fuel is scarce, and even more precious than
food.

The five human forms, crouching close to it, had been Lenox's sole
companions through three months of hardship and danger, sweetened by
the exhilaration of conquering such difficulties as brace a man's nerve
and fortitude to the utmost. Four of them were Gurkhas,--a Havildar
and three men; short, sturdy hill folk of the Mongol type, with the
spirits of schoolboys and the grit of heroes. The fifth was a Pathan
from Desmond's regiment, told off to act as orderly and surveyor; a man
of immovable gravity, who shared but two qualities with the
thick-headed, stout-hearted little soldiers from Nepal:--courage of the
first order, and devotion to the British officer, for whom any one of
them would have laid down his life, if need be; not as a matter of
sentiment or heroism, but simply as a matter of course. The Gurkhas
had, in fact, settled it among themselves before starting, that if any
harm came to the Sahib none of them were to disgrace the name of the
regiment by returning without their leader.

Now, as he neared the fire, looking bigger and broader than usual in
his sheep-skin coat and Balaklava cap,--his jaw and throat protected by
a beard black as his hair,--all five stood up to receive him: and the
quivering light showed that they also were muffled to the eyes.

"It is a _burra khana_[1] to-night, Hazur," the Havildar informed him
with a chuckle; his slits of eyes vanishing as his teeth flashed out.
"In a treeless country, the castor-oil is a big plant! And the cook,
having three handfuls of flour to spare, hath made us three
_chupattis_; one for your Honour, and one to be broken up among
ourselves."

"No, no, Havildar; fair play," Lenox answered, smiling. "We will
divide the three."

But seeing that insistence would damp their childish spirit of
festivity, he accepted Benjamin's portion; and satisfied his conscience
by sharing it with Brutus, the inevitable, who snuggled contentedly
under a corner of his poshteen, and thanked his stars he was not as
other dogs, a mere loafer round clubs and cantonments. It was bad to
be cold and hungry; to plunge shoulder-deep through snow, and slither
across hideous slopes of ice; but it was uplifti