as silence again for a long time, for Cumner's Son was turning
things over in his mind; and all at once he felt that each man's acts
must be judged by the blood that is in him and the trail by which he has
come.

The sorrel and the chestnut mare travelled together as on one
snaffle-bar, step by step, for they were foaled in the same stable.
Through stretches of reed-beds and wastes of osiers they passed, and
again by a path through the jungle where the briar-vines caught at them
like eager fingers, and a tiger crossed their track, disturbed in his
night's rest. At length out of the dank distance they saw the first
colour of dawn.

"Ten miles," said Tang-a-Dahit, "and we shall come to the Bar of Balmud.
Then we shall be in my own country. See, the dawn comes up! 'Twixt here
and the Bar of Balmud our danger lies. A hundred men may ambush there,
for Boonda Broke's thieves have scattered all the way from Mandakan to
our borders."

Cumner's Son looked round. There were hills and defiles everywhere, and
a thousand places where foes could hide. The quickest way, but the most
perilous, lay through the long defile between the hills, flanked by
boulders and rank scrub. Tang-a-Dahit pointed out the ways that they
might go--by the path to the left along the hills, or through the green
defile; and Cumner's Son instantly chose the latter way.

"If the fight were fair," said the hillsman, "and it were man to man,
the defile is the better way; but these be dogs of cowards who strike
from behind rocks. No one of them has a heart truer than Boonda Broke's,
the master of the carrion. We will go by the hills. The way is harder
but more open, and if we be prospered we will rest awhile at the Bar of
Balmud, and at noon we will tether and eat in the Neck of Baroob."

They made their way through the medlar trees and scrub to the plateau
above, and, the height gained, they turned to look back. The sun was
up, and trailing rose and amber garments across the great Eastern arch.
Their path lay towards it, for Pango Dooni hid in the hills, where the
sun hung a roof of gold above his stronghold.

"Forty to one!" said Tang-a-Dahit suddenly. "Now indeed we ride for our
lives!"

Looking down the track of the hillsman's glance Cumner's Son saw a bunch
of horsemen galloping up the slope. Boonda Broke's men!

The sorrel and the mare were fagged, the horses of their foes were
fresh; and forty to one were odds that no man would care to take. It
mi