rmy better.
There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know--you damned
engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat
upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was
too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought
the smash.

"'I'm sorry, Dan,' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. This
business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we'll make something out of it yet,
when we've got to Bashkai.'

"'Let's get to Bashkai, then,' says Dan, 'and, by God, when I come
back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket
left!'

"We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down
on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself.

"'There's no hope o' getting clear,' said Billy Fish. 'The priests have
sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't
you stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man,' says
Billy Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to
his Gods.

"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no level
ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at Billy
Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never said
a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with
snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in
position waiting in the middle!

"'The runners have been very quick,' says Billy Fish, with a little bit
of a laugh. 'They are waiting for us.'

"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chance
shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses.
He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had
brought into the country.

"'We're done for,' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people,--and
it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy
Fish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cut
for it. Carnehan,' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along with
Billy, Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's me
that did it! Me, the King!'

"'Go!' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, you
clear out, and we two will meet those folk.'

"'I'm a Chief,' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My men
can go.'

"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan
and Me and Billy