id not come up, sent back a mounted officer
who, after a two-mile ride, came up with the missing troops, and
guided them back to the point where they had left the route.

From the foot of the ravine to the top of the pass is six miles in
distance and, dark as it was in the open, it was still more so in
the ravine, shadowed by the steep hills on either side. As the
ascent continued the road became worse; the boulders being larger,
and the holes and dried-up pools deeper. The darkness, and the
prevailing white color of the stones, prevented the difference of
level being observed; and many of the men had heavy falls, as the
steep sides of these pools were often from two to four feet deep.

After marching for a mile and a half up the ravine, the report of a
rifle was heard in the ranks of the 29th Punjaubees--who were
leading the column--followed instantly by another discharge.
Colonel Gordon--commanding the regiment--halted; and he and the
general tried, in vain, to discover who had fired. No one could, or
would, identify them; and this seemed clearly to prove that the
rifles had been fired as a signal to the enemy, for they had not
been loaded before the column started. The Punjaubee regiments
contained many hill tribesmen--men closely connected, by ties of
blood and religion, with the enemy whom they were marching to
attack.

A non-commissioned officer and several of the men, who were just
about the spot where the guns had been fired, were placed under
arrest and sent back. It was afterwards found that two of their
rifles had been discharged; and the men who fired, and their
non-commissioned officer were tried by court martial for treachery,
and were hung. After these men had been sent back, the 5th
Ghoorkas, the company of Rangers, and two companies of the 72nd
passed the 23rd Punjaubees, and took their places at the head of
the column. In the course of the march a good many other men of the
23rd left the column, in the dark, and made their way back to camp.

It turned out, afterwards, that the Afghan sentries at the top of
the pass heard the reports, and woke up the commander of the post;
who, hearing no further cause of alarm, took no action in the
matter. Had the traitors waited until the column was within a mile
of the top of the pass, the Afghans would assuredly have taken the
alarm but, firing at a distance of four and a half miles, they
failed in the desired effect.

The advance was resumed, up the bed of