served our turn. We didn't raise
more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to make the
Degree common. And they was clamoring to be raised.

"'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another
Communication, and see how you are working.' Then he asks them about
their villages, and learns that they was fighting one against the other,
and were sick and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was
fighting with the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into
our country,' says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for
a Frontier guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be
drilled. Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he
does well, and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white
people--sons of Alexander--and not like common, black Mohammedans. You
are _my_ people, and by God,' says he, running off into English at the
end--'I'll make a damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making!'

"I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a
lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I
never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again go
out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing,
and make 'em throw rope-bridges across the ravines which cut up the
country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and
down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both
fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just
waited for orders.

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were
afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of
friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across
the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call
four priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call in
Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chief we
call Kafuzelum--it was like enough to his real name--and hold councils
with 'em when there was any fighting to be done in small villages. That
was his Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak,
and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'em they sent me,
with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying turquoises,
into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made Martini rifles, that
come out of the Amir's workshops at Ka