d vanished. Kim tore back down the ditch
till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped
across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled himself in the blanket.

'At least Mahbub knows,' he thought contentedly. 'And certainly he
spoke as one expecting it. I do not think those two men will profit by
tonight's watch.'

An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake all
night, he slept deeply. Now and again a night train roared along the
metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental's
indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream through
his slumber.

Mahbub was anything but asleep. It annoyed him vehemently that people
outside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should pursue him
for the life. His first and natural impulse was to cross the line
lower down, work up again, and, catching his well-wishers from behind,
summarily slay them. Here, he reflected with sorrow, another branch of
the Government, totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton, might
demand explanations which would be hard to supply; and he knew that
south of the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse
or so. He had not been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to
Umballa with the message, and hoped that suspicion had been finally
diverted.

Then a most brilliant notion struck him.

'The English do eternally tell the truth,' he said, 'therefore we of
this country are eternally made foolish. By Allah, I will tell the
truth to an Englishman! Of what use is the Government police if a poor
Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks. This is as bad as
Peshawur! I should lay a complaint at the station. Better still, some
young Sahib on the Railway! They are zealous, and if they catch
thieves it is remembered to their honour.'

He tied up his horse outside the station, and strode on to the platform.

'Hullo, Mahbub Ali' said a young Assistant District Traffic
Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line--a tall, tow-haired,
horsey youth in dingy white linen. 'What are you doing here? Selling
weeds--eh?'

'No; I am not troubled for my horses. I come to look for Lutuf Ullah.
I have a truck-load up the line. Could anyone take them out without
the Railway's knowledge?'

'Shouldn't think so, Mahbub. You can claim against us if they do.'

'I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucks
nearly all night. Fa