Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

276 tunics who were lashing wearied beasts in the dread of being left behind the sahibs should be fighting — for which- they had come expectantly half a thousand miles— be near at hand. ‘“Damn your ambuscades!” swore Ar- thur Rand. “ My girl is up there where we saw the fire last night.” He rode very well, this lean American father with the white hair and the slow drawl that coated a bitter voice. He spurred on into a green ravine, and the En- glish major, armed only with a valued rid- ing crop, followed, in absolute defiance of all rules of tactics for a small, mounted patrol in hostile country. “Damned if I'll let you lead,” he re- sponded irritably. So the two came bridle to bridle to the bed of a small brook, and simultaneously reined in their mounts at sight of Donovan and Edith cooking lunch very carefully and with much skill over a tiny camp-fire, while Aravang stretched his sheep-skin clad body beside them. One by one the best mounted troopers—all volunteers picked from a native regiment—trotted up with carbines in hand and eyes alert for the treachery which long experience taught them was apt to follow close upon the heels of foolhardy sakibs who rode with no re- gard for the danger of mountain muskets. These veteran border warriors—and, to tell the truth, their leader also—were as- tonished to see a tall mem-sahib with hair much like spun gold and eyes that gleamed like jewels from a smoke-stained face rise and fly toward the horse of the American who had led them from Kashgar. “* Daddy!” “My girl!” Arthur Rand swung from his saddle with an ease beyond his years, and took Edith into his arms. Major Fraser-Carnie said: “My word!” and coughed. Then he brought his horse up to interview the pale Englishman who waited beside the fire. “So you had a hand in this, my young rascal!’’ he accused. Donovan smiled,. without taking his eyes from Edith and her father. “Not as much as you might think, ma- jor,” he said. ‘‘ Remember, you said at THE ARGOSY. Gilghit I was heading into trouble in the hills. Well, what are you doing here your- self with an armed force on native soil?” Fraser-Carnie looked guilty, and mut- tered something about old ties, and all that sort of thing. ‘“ Besides, you see, Captain Donovan, I couldn’t let that blooming American—confoundedly game, you know —come up here on his own, of course.” ‘““T see.” Donovan’s eyes twinkled, al- though he spoke gravely. His thoughts went back to the evening when the two had talked at the major’s bungalow, and the officer’s reverence for the memory of the wife of Arthur Rand, and he wondered whether Fraser-Carnie had done justice to his own motives. Nothing would content the major, how- ever, but @ screening force flung in the di- rection of the smouldering tower. Even when his men reported nothing at the Aur- gan except the embers of the fire and some camels feeding near by. And no sight of any native village or villagers or, indeed, any evidence of a fight except for scattered cartridge shells. 3 ‘“Captain Donovan can tell us the story,” he objected. Donovan’s eyes met Edith’s, serious over the camp-fire. “Perhaps,” he said, “it might better keep.” Meanwhile Edith was bemoaning the ab- sence ef food adequate for three hungry men, and, oh, such a starved girl. Fraser- Carnie, engrossed by this need of all En- glishmen—a hearty lunch—ordered up his emergency rations and detailed a man from the troopers’ mess to cook. White napkins were spread on the grass, and Edith seated herself, flushed with triumph and the after-effect of great fatigue, on the grass between her father and John Donovan. While she gripped Arthur Rand’s hand, her other hand was busied with a spoon of beans. “Oh, Dono-van. Khan!” she cried joy- fully. ‘‘ Daddy says we are quite bank- rupt. He has failed most terribly, and we haven’t a penny.” Donovan smiled. Six months ago these tidings would have seemed -to Edith to be the collapse of the world about her ears cComicoooks C@