nd the tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over
the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken, could
only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down the bank
to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the barley again. As
Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu Hussein ere he learned to
take the necessary steps and to get away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw
the whole procession of the Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue,
bearing him company for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses
and the donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and
off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along the
line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return through
the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten o'clock. While the
horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on Royal's flank, the Governor
and his Inspector worked for the good of the Hunt and his Province.

After a little time there was no need to beat any man for neglecting
his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed from waterwheel
to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and put to according. If an
earth were overlooked, it meant some dispute as to the ownership of the
land, and then and there the Hunt checked and settled it in this wise:
The Governor and the Inspector side by side, but the latter half a
horse's length to the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in
front; the villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack,
who quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left. Twenty
minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case, for, as the
Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at the truth in a
hunting-field a heap quicker than in your lawcourts."

"But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.

"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're running a
wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my decisions yet."

The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the Governor's
favour. He bought their barley, for his horses.

"Channels," he said, "are necessary that we may all jump them. They are
necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many wheels and sound
channels--and much good barley."

"Without money