e think Yankling
Sahib will permit down-country police to wander all over the hills,
disturbing his game? It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and farther
from Shamlegh to Shamlegh-midden.'

'So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top that
the Sahibs pack themselves every morning.'

'Thus it is proved,' said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they are
Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling
Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights to shoot
serow--I say, who, ever heard of these Sahibs coming into the hills
without a down-country cook, and a bearer, and--and all manner of
well-paid, high-handed and oppressive folk in their tail? How can they
make trouble? What of the kilta?'

'Nothing, but that it is full of the Written Word--books and papers in
which they wrote, and strange instruments, as of worship.'

'Shamlegh-midden will take them all.'

'True! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods thereby! I do not like
to handle the Written Word in that fashion. And their brass idols are
beyond my comprehension. It is no plunder for simple hill-folk.'

'The old man still sleeps. Hst! We will ask his chela.' The Ao-chung
man refreshed himself, and swelled with pride of leadership.

'We have here,' he whispered, 'a kilta whose nature we do not know.'

'But I do,' said Kim cautiously. The lama drew breath in natural, easy
sleep, and Kim had been thinking of Hurree's last words. As a player
of the Great Game, he was disposed just then to reverence the Babu.
'It is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful things, not to be
handled by fools.'

'I said it; I said it,' cried the bearer of that burden. 'Thinkest
thou it will betray us?'

'Not if it be given to me. I can draw out its magic. Otherwise it
will do great harm.'

'A priest always takes his share.' Whisky was demoralizing the
Ao-chung man.

'It is no matter to me.' Kim answered, with the craft of his
mother-country. 'Share it among you, and see what comes!'

'Not I. I was only jesting. Give the order. There is more than enough
for us all. We go our way from Shamlegh in the dawn.'

They arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans for another
hour, while Kim shivered with cold and pride. The humour of the
situation tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul. Here were
the emissaries of the dread Power of the North, very possibly as great
in their own land as