They had hated each other from the very beginning.
Major Leslie, tall, blond, with a florid face and invisible eyebrows, and an over-inflated conception of his own dignity, was the scion of a family whose store of worldly goods was in the inverse ratio to the blueness of its blood. This unfortunate lack of the more useful commodity precluding his entry into a crack regiment, he had been forced to join the Supply and Transport Corps, where, if the glory were less, the emoluments were correspondingly greater.
He successfully offset the former deficiency by giving strenuous publicity to his full title of Major, the Hon. Scott-Leslie, and treating his subordinates with a proper patrician aloofness. When it is added that he habitually looked out of only one eye, effectually closing the other with a monocle— “'Nuff said!” Withal, after the manner of all his kind, he was a brave man and not a bad soldier.
Dickinson—“Kite” Dickinson—was the diametrical opposite except as to courage. He was the positive pole of the two conflicting forces. The only point of resemblance was height; but whereas the Major was bulky and inclined to puffiness, Dickinson was lean and angular, with the alertness of a hawk and the ungainly joints of a camel, which carried with them a corresponding tirelessness. The perfect dentistry he displayed when he smiled—which was nearly all the time—was alone sufficient to proclaim him an American: one of the pioneer type, with a natural-born and ineradicable aptitude for being where he had no business to be.
He was there now; that is, fifteen thousand feet above sea-level and about four thousand above the highest clouds, in the Jalap-La pass with the Tibet expeditionary force of 1904—or rather “Mission,” as the British Government chose to call it.
After several lively years of hunting, exploring, prospecting, and sundry similar exciting and profitless occupations, he had taken up a contract to provide baggage transports for the expedition, and should have been down at the base of operations at Gantok. That is why he was at the front: with the advance column.
It was but natural that two such opposite types should have come into conflict. The Major, who was in charge of the transport facilities for the expedition, thought that all underlings should concede the deference due to a “man of blood” and the wearer of an eye-glass by addressing him as “Sir,” and had taken occasion to express his views on the matter very forcibly at an early stage of their dealings together. His very insistence had aroused all the sturdy democratic independence in Dickinson, who was perfectly willing to give him the title which his military rank carried; but he refused to cringe; or as he himself expressed it, “he wasn't goin' to sling valet talk at no suckling duke.”
He sat just now like a contemplative stork, hugging a bony great knee on his cot in the tent which he shared with the correspondent of the Statesman. His unnaturally serious countenance masked a feeling of sublime and beatific content; he was ragging Major Leslie, and he knew it.
Before him stood the Major, looking very flushed and disgruntled. He had come in to give some trifling instructions about the other's mule-drivers, and had forgotten the issue in his uncontrollable desire to assert his dignity. Dickinson's consistent refusal to rise to his feet and salute when addressed, as the native contractors did, had harried his little soul ever since the beginning of the expedition, and he was now stating his views on the matter with perfervid fluency.
“I am sorry to have to revert to this matter again, Mr. Dickinson,” he concluded pompously. “But I consider it my duty to state that your conduct is—er—subversive of discipline.”
Everything that did not tend to uphold Major, the Hon. Scott-Leslie's dignity was subversive of discipline.
“Can't follow your line o' reason, Maje,” said Dickinson cheerfully. “My drivers give a darn sight less trouble than any o' your nigger contractors, an' I get my mules up on time; quicker than the battery mules too, though I carry a bigger load.”
“But, Mr. Dickinson, military discipline must be upheld.”
Dickinson unhooked his knee and carefully adjusted the other beneath his chin before replying.
“Looks to me like military discipline ain't figurin' in this,” he grinned maliciously. “To begin with, your Government says that this picnic ain't no military expedition at all; it's jest a 'Mission under armed escort.' An' to go on with, I'm a non-combatant, as you explained to me gratuitous an' circumstantial when I asked for one or two little camp privileges. I jest hold a plain contrac' with your Government. You're here to look after their end of it, an'——”
“Pf-rr-rt!”
Two jagged rents appeared in the canvas above, heralded by the sound of a far-away shot somewhere up on the mountain-side.
Simultaneously with a single gymnastic motion, Dickinson slid off the cot like an otter and extended himself at full length behind some pack-saddles.
“—An' I'm here to look after my end,” he continued unconcernedly from that position. “Better come in behind the fire-screen, Major.”
Major Leslie had given an involuntary jump, and his monocle had fallen out of his face; but he was of that type of officer which considers it disgraceful to take shelter from bullets, and his fast vanishing temper disappeared entirely at the thought of his display of nervousness. He turned on Dickinson with a snarl:
“You can attend to your end perfectly well from the base, Mr. Dickinson. You seem to forget that you are here only on sufferance.”
Dickinson wagged a bony finger at him from the floor.
“Sure on sufferance,” he admitted cheerfully. “But with the express permission of Colonel Younghusband, so I could look after my mules an' my men.”
The Major opened his mouth to reply, snapped lips together again, gulped, drew himself up and strode out, eating up at least a third of his carefully-trained mustache.
Dickinson sat up and wrinkled his nose discontentedly as he surveyed the bullet holes above. At the same time the other occupant of the tent emerged from behind the wholly inadequate protection of a despatch-box, and their glances met in the keen amusement of mutual understanding.
“Why do you rag him so unmercifully, Dick?” There was a shade of remonstrance in the newspaper man's tone.
“Why does he try to come the Lord God Almighty over me like that? I ain't one of his flunkies back home.”
“Oh, well, it wouldn't hurt you to call him 'Sir.'”
“See here, Sanderson,” said Dickinson seriously.: “Where I come from I'd call my boss by his first name. But I ain't proud; I don't do the haughty over anything that creeps or crawls or stinks; when it comes to a show-down of humility I'm brother to a wood-louse; an' I'd call this misfire earl the Archangel Gabriel if he'd treat me like a white man. But he don't. He gives me a cramp in the vitals every time he opens up with his 'Er—Mistah Dickinsern.'”
Sanderson had to laugh.
“It's a mistake, Dick,” he persisted. “He can make trouble for you. But cramp reminds me that it's about supper time.” And he groaned dismally.
His unhappiness was explained by the fact that the whole expedition had been on strict rations for the past two weeks.
“Bully beef and hard tack! Oh, my suffering soul!”
A new smile of benign satisfaction spread over Dickinson's face as he laid his finger on his lips with an exaggerated display of caution. He poked his head out of the blanket that hung over the tent-flap and looked both ways; then he slowly dived his hand into a roll of bedding and produced—a can of baked beans!
Sanderson leaped on it with a howl of joy.
“Where'd you get it, Dick?”
The wily man of resource clapped his hand over the other's mouth.
“Sh-sh! You don't have to advertise it; we'd be held up an' robbed if anybody knew.”
Sanderson was already hacking at the tin with his pocket-knife.
“Oh, you gem! How did you do it?”
“Ain't I a wiz?” said Dickinson proudly. “That's the first instalment of the food trust.”
“Yes, but how? When? There's nothing come up from the base for two weeks, except despatches.”
“Despatches is right, son; you've hit it first plunk. Despatches! That is to say, mail-bags. But I ain't takin' any credit; it's jest an accident of nature. The immortal Bill says that a man o' my build is 'fit for treasons, stratagems, an' spoils;' an' I does a bit o' figurin' an' then I forms the trust with O'Loughlin, the Field Post-Office man. I puts it to him how his babu despatcher down to the base can mix some eats surreptitious in with the mails; an' I holds fifty per cent. stock for promotion.”
Sanderson gazed at him in undisguised admiration. His soul was too full for words. Incidentally, so was his mouth.
At intervals a far-away shot rang out from the lone sniper among the rocks above.
Late that night Sanderson was awakened by Dickinson swearing softly to himself as he rummaged for something to patch the rents in the tent with.
“Right above my head, gol darn him,” he heard him complain. “An' it's blowin' minus a hundred in the shade outside.”
And a little later, following on a shot which had preceded a shriek somewhere in the camp:
“Sanderson! Oh, Sandy! I'm goin' out an' get that louse-bitten sniper in the morning.”
Sanderson grunted a sleepy approval. Although his occupation was strictly non-military, he was by no means devoid of that pleasant lust for battle, murder and sudden death which actuates us all at times, especially when the opposing side is actively engaged in displaying a similar interest. Besides he had no fear for Dickinson. Dickinson was injury-proof—as he himself often complained, just because he carried an accident policy for a scandalous sum.
Early as Dickinson was the following morning, he found active preparations in hand for a regular expedition against the sniper. That industrious gentleman had been dropping long-range shots on and off throughout the night into the camp, to the occasional detriment and continual annoyance of the Queen's Own Regiment, and of the Gurkhas who lay alongside of them.
Big, soft-nosed Snider bullets make a horrible wound, and arriving at intervals out of the cold dark to strike no one knows where, they will do more to edge up the nerves of a regiment than anything else in warfare. The company commanders had been kept busy throughout the freezing night going about among the men, and their tempers were savage. They prayed for the morning and vengeance; and Lieutenant Wilson of the Gurkhas had bet heavily on certain marksmen of his company in regimental rivalry with Captain Train of the Queen's Own.
The result was a string of khaki-clad figures skirmishing out among the boulders and snow toward the cliff where the Tibetan danced and howled in evident delight at the honor done him. Dickinson unobtrusively slipped in amongst them.
“Sight for five hundred, men,” sang out Wilson.
“Six hundred, Queen's Own!” corrected Train. “You've got to allow for the clear air and the elevation, Wilson.”
“Eight hundred!” muttered Dickinson from the extreme right, with the knowledge born of much mountain-shooting experience.
Captain Train flushed angrily, and as Wilson grinned at him, resolved mentally to speak to “that cheeky Tommy” at a future occasion.
One or two shots commenced to spit from behind the rocks, and the Tibetan lay down at the edge of his cliff, from where he began to return the fire with enthusiasm. Dickinson grunted with the hunter's inborn scorn of the machine-made marksman.
“Don't any of 'em know enough to try a sighting shot?”
He picked out a little lichen-covered patch on the black cliff face and fired. A splinter of rock shaled off at the extreme upper edge and was followed by a roar of laughter.
“You've got a fine shot there, Train,” gibed Wilson; and the other gnashed his teeth.
Dickinson looked around in quick amazement, which changed to a wide grin at their appalling ignorance. Then, “Seven-fifty!” he amended to himself, and waiting his chance till the sniper's head and shoulders appeared again, fired quickly.
The Tibetan's rifle flew from his hand and fell like a plummet till it struck a projection several hundred feet below, where it disintegrated like a pyrotechnic bomb, while the man sprawled forward and hung with his head and arms swinging over the cliff-edge.
“Oh, pretty! Pretty, indeed!” shouted Train. “I'll take the two hundred in notes, Wilson.” Then, to Dickinson: “That was a fine shot, my man. What company are you in?”
Dickinson shuffled his big feet awkwardly. With the modesty of true genius he hated praise, and he blew uncomfortably through the barrel of his rifle before replying.
“No comp'ny, Cap'n. I'm jest contractin' for transport.”
The officer gasped. He had intended to reward the shot with a condescending present of ten rupees; but there was no precedent for this in the whole drill-book.
“Wh—what? Why?” he spluttered. “A contractor? Why, —— it, man, you're a non-combatant; you've got no business to be here.”
“Non-combatant. No business.” Dickinson was used to this. His awkwardness vanished, to give place to amazed disgust.
“Well! Now wouldn't that jar you? If that don't beat— Aw, what's the use? I pass!” He gave up wearily.
“Eh—what?”
“I mean 'Really now,' or 'My word, dontcher know,' or somep'n like that.” And he fled incontinently.
Insult upon injury! The indignant officer was on the verge of apoplexy; and Wilson's obvious joy goaded him to see a perfect mirage of red carnage.
“—— it!” he snorted at length. “That's Leslie's fault! Why the devil can't he keep his men in hand?” It was evident that the aristocratic Major was not as highly appreciated as he might have wished. “I'll talk to the Honorable! By Jove, I will!”
And he did—in forceful terms, loaded with disapproval.
The day's march was an awful grind. Road, of course, there was none. An icy torrent zigzagged down the pass, which had to be forded about twenty times as the column progressed, slipping and scrambling over the drifted snow and piled boulders. The military sweated and swore; and the transport drivers, according to immemorial custom, developed all the ills known to science, and with startling Oriental ingenuity discovered several new ones.
When Captain Train finally found himself in the vicinity of Major Leslie, the souls of both men yearned for murder as a pleasant diversion and slight relief. There ensued an acrimonious conversation in which “discipline” and “impertinent interference” figured largely on both sides. Bloodshed was avoided by the Captain suddenly disappearing in a seven-foot drift hole.
Major, the Hon. Scott-Leslie, prayed for his immediate death and passed on, communing with his lacerated soul in a series of explosive snorts, which finally terminated in swearing a mighty oath that he would interview Colonel Younghusband that very evening and get Dickinson ordered back to the base of operations.
As he reflected on the long list of indignities to which he had been subjected at the hands of that cheerful malefactor he almost rejoiced to think that such a course would inevitably inflict serious loss on the latter; for native Dorabis without the restraining humanitarian influence of white supervision will kill off transport animals as fast as anthrax.
But his amiable intentions did not materialize in just the way he had proposed. Late that afternoon the sweating column came upon the first and only real resistance during the whole expedition—the sangar at Rangpo. Here the Tibetans had piled a rude barricade of rocks, and exhorted by the militant: lamas were prepared to resist the advance toward the sacred city with a fearsome assortment of archaic guns, and weird cannon made of fire-hardened bamboo bound with brass wire, and obsolete lacquered armor, and here and there a semi-modern rifle.
The interpreter sent forward by Colonel Younghusband to try to negotiate for peace was shot down by a frenzied lama, and then the engagement began.
“Engagement” is inadequate. It was a massacre. In half an hour the remnant was swarming over the ridges to disappear like blown mist. For the rest of the advance the country was deserted as if a pestilence had swept it.
The men were nearly dead with the day's work, but it was imperative to send a detachment forward to occupy the farther end of the pass about ten miles beyond. It was equally imperative, in that climate, that they should have shelter when they got there.
Colonel Younghusband sent for Major Leslie. The Major said it was impossible. Such a day's march in such a country had been even harder on the pack-animals than on the men, and they couldn't stand it.
Colonel Younghusband said it was absolutely necessary; and the Major was grudgingly forced to admit that if any man in his train could drive his men any farther in the present circumstances it was Dickinson; further, that Dickinson's mules were the best-fed and strongest in the whole camp.
Colonel Younghusband sent for Dickinson. Dickinson calmly went into figures. He accurately detailed a mule's full load and the limit of its endurance, and explained that if forced to go farther at least half of them would die on the march.
The Colonel repeated that it was necessary; Dickinson pointed out the injustice of it, when it had been admitted that the battery mules carrying the screw-guns could go no farther.
“It is a necessity of war, Mr. Dickinson,” insisted the Colonel not unkindly. “I'm sorry for you; but it is the risk of warfare, and the men must have food and shelter.”
Dickinson's lean jaw set as he saw before him the complete financial failure of his venture; but he had taken chances all his life, and this was by no means the first time that luck had run against him.
“Very well, Colonel,” he said. “I'll drive 'em; but it'll bust me higher'n a kite.”
He was unwontedly serious when he rushed into his tent to snatch a mouthful of food before setting out—so much so that Sanderson asked him what was wrong. Dickinson explained.
“Ah-h!” said Sanderson. “I told you he could make trouble for you.”
“Nope! Guess you're wrong, Sandy. This pin-head lord don't love me any, an' he's got the brains of a Silurian fish; but Ill give him the credit for not putting this thing over on me with malice an' aforethought.”
“Does it break you very bad, Dick?” inquired Sanderson solicitously.
Dickinson threw back his wide shoulders and laughed. The first shock of his disappointment was over; and he had always taken the lean years with the same cheerful inconsequence as he did the fat ones.
“Well, not so bad that I'll never be able to crawl up again. Y'see, it's this way. This contrac' don't amount to a whole lot, but I figured if I could sell my mules agen after the whole picnic was over I'd clear a good an' fair profit. So I traded for the best there was, an' I got some sixty-odd at two hundred apiece. Now, that's big money for mules, an' if they takes an' dies off on me, the contrac' don't begin to cover it.”
“D'you think they'll die?”
“Sure,” said Dickinson with conviction. “Most of 'em. I'm durn sorry for the beasts; it sure looks like their last lap.”
Then he went out to drive them according to “the necessity of war.”
A few days later the remnant was strung out in a long plodding line on the great Tibetan plateau. Dickinson trudged along by Sanderson's side and assisted him whole-heartedly in anathematizing the entire country, the while his eyes swept the landscape like a predatory hawk. Their discontent was heightened by the fact that the food trust was not yielding dividends. The intervals of communication with the base were getting longer and longer, and the weight of the mail-bags was a matter of much moment.
“When I was a kid,” complained Dickinson, “teacher useter tell me that this was a table-land infested with Tibetans, turquoises an' tea trees. Now, 'cept'n we ain't climbin' through a hole in the sky no longer, this here don't meet my requirements for a tea table; it looks like sections of the Grand Cañon cut up an' left lyin' around promiscuous. I ain't seen a turquoise, an' there ain't been a leaf in sight for three weeks. I always did think I knew more'n that teacher anyhow.”
“Yes,” chimed in Sanderson. “And the Tibetans are as scarce as the rest of the list.”
“Aw, shucks! The landscape is fairly crawlin' with Tibetans; only they ain't feelin' like comin' in an' say how-do.”
Sanderson laughed.
“Wrong that time, Dick! The Colonel says he only wishes they could catch some prisoners to get some information out of; but the scouts always report the country is deserted.”
“Huh!” grunted Dickinson. “Scouts? Them town-bred Tommies? There ain't a scout in the whole outfit. I seen signs all the while; an' you jest ask some o' them Gurkha fellers.”
“Impossible, Dick! There can't be any population here, because there's nothing for them to eat.”
Dickinson halted with an explosive exclamation, and brought his hand down on Sanderson's shoulder with a delighted smack which sent him sprawling into a ready snow drift. The indignant newspaper man crawled out and launched forth on a luridly earnest peroration; but the other cut him short with a voice of dramatic intensity.
“Son, d'you think these Tibetans really eat?”
“Of course they do, you blighted idiot!”
“Then it follows natcherly that they carry their commissariat around with them.”
“Oh, Hades! I suppose so—if there are any.”
“Sandy, boy, I'm goin' out an' collect a prisoner.”
“Oh, you're crazy! No one's allowed to leave the line of march, and there's not a live thing within a hundred miles. And if there were you'd get knocked on the head, and— Oh, what's the use?”
Dickinson was grinning expansively and quietly helping himself to cartridges from the other's belt.
“If you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin' rod, he's like to show you everything he owns,” he quoted softly. “Just order your supper, son. What'll you have? Call early an' avoid the rush.”
Half an hour later the rear guard came up with Dickinson limping painfully along. One of the men sympathetically handed him a priceless stub of tallow candle.
“Feet guv out?” he inquired. “'Ere y'are. Shave a bit int' yer socks; that'll set 'em right.”
Dickinson gratefully complied, and for a while kept up bravely; but presently he began to fall behind again.
“Guess I got a frozen toe, fellers. I gotta take my boot off.”
He sat down on a rock and the column plodded on.
Two hundred yards separated them when the same soldier sang out:
“Arf a mo', Sergeant. That Yankee beggar ain't caught up yet, an 'e's got me taller.”
“All right!” yelled Dickinson. “I'm a-comin', fellers.”
The column swung 'round a bend; and Dickinson raced off up the mountain side with a silent chuckle.
Three hours passed. The Sergeant was frantic; he had let a man fall behind, and he was now lost, cut off perhaps. The owner of the candle goaded him further by complaining loudly about his irretrievable loss.
A loud hail from behind relieved the tension. Two hundred men turned like one and behind the spectacle of an angular scarecrow holding his nose with one hand, and with the other leading an indignant, unwilling Tibetan by the pigtail.
The captor handed his prisoner over with deep relief.
“Take him away from me, Sergeant. I'd sooner ride herd to a flock of camels. Phe-ew! He ain't never washed since the world began.”
A dozen men sprang forward to take the prisoner, and deft hands swiftly explored him for possible plunder. Dickinson's face was inscrutable as he strode forward to take his place in the center with the transport.
Later, Sanderson saw the Sergeant hurrying the Tibetan to the front, and pulled up in wondering admiration to wait for Dickinson.
“What did you get?” he inquired hungrily.
Dickinson shrugged disgustedly.
“The assay don't pan out to expectations. All he gave me was a curio, a little tin shrine with a god in it, an' about two pounds o' cheese.”
“Gave, nothing! Catch a Tibetan giving you anything! Let's see!”
“Well, I hadda jump on him from a cliff about a mile high, an' I mighta been a trifle hasty an' ungentle like,” admitted Dickinson as he produced a beautiful little silver case set with turquoise matrix containing a bronze Buddha, and a large lump of unappetizing-looking stuff almost black with grease and as hard as a billet of wood.
Sanderson whooped and pounced on the latter.
“Vak's milk!' he exclaimed. “Dick, you're a gr-reat man! Golly, ain't it filthy, though. The dirty cannibal must have carried it next to his skin for months; we'll have to scrape at least a pound off it. Hide it away good. I've got to hurry to the front and see if there's any copy in the information they get out of the fellow.”
When Sanderson saw Dickinson again, camp had long since been pitched, and the latter was sitting hunched up like a dejected flamingo, engaged in abstruse intellectual meditation.
“It ain't no use,” he announced mournfully. “I can't wash that skunk smell outen it.”
“Skunk? Out of what?”
“That there sample o' cheese. See that mule across there—that sick-lookin' one with his ears flopped over? Well I give him the scrapin's. Sandy, I tell you that cuss musta been on the edge of everlastin' dissolution from hopeless and irredeemable decay. What's all the other news?”
“You!” said Sanderson. “The whole staff is talking about you. They're glad to get the prisoner; but Murray is sore because you put it over on his scouts, and they all agree that you had no business to be there at all, and——”
Dickinson expanded visibly.
“An' did they say I was a non-combatant?”
Sanderson nodded.
“An' discipline? Did they talk about discipline?” His eagerness was almost pathetic.
“Oh, yes; they said your conduct was antagonistic to discipline.”
Dickinson straightened up. He radiated cheerfulness.
“Dear boys,” he murmured. “I'd 'a' been disappointed if they'd 'a' left out discipline.”'
“But that's not all,” continued Sanderson. “The fellow made an awful howl that you had looted him, and——”
“Looted?” exclaimed Dickinson with a look of sorrowful reproach. “An' he gave it to me without a murmur—I was jest holdin' him easy with his own back-hair switch around his neck. My faith in human nature is shook. But he can have it back, every ounce but the shavin's what the mule eat.”
“Oh, he didn't mention the cheese at all.”
“He didn't? I ain't surprised any. P'raps the man he'd saved it for is dead already. When are they comin' for the tin tobacker box?”
Sanderson looked mystified.
“Now that's the funny part of it, Dick,” he said. “The beggar said he wouldn't take it back; he had an incoherent story about it's being one of seven identical others, and about the curse of somebody falling on him for losing it and you for robbing it, and he couldn't wipe out his end by taking it back, and a whole lot more.”
“Aw, they usually have somep'n like that,” commented Dickinson carelessly. “What'd the Colonel say?”
“The Colonel was very annoyed indeed. He talked about his 'mission' and a 'policy of propitiation,' and said he was in two minds about sending you back; only he felt sort of sorry for you about the mules you had to lose the other day.”
“H'm! Good for him!” grunted Dickinson. “Not that it would make much odds now, anyway; I ain't got no stock worth stayin' for. Well, all that's mighty interesting, but it don't help out the grub proposition any.”
He shrank into his blanket and resumed his melancholy attitude of hugging his knees and whistling through his teeth, while he watched the pale stars creep out above the saddleback ridge which overhung the camp.
In a sheltered cranny nestled a low, dark monastery, the location of which could now be determined only by the tall bamboo poles of its prayer flags, standing out in sharp silhouette against a burnt-umber sky. A thin wind rustling among its little swinging bells carried down soft tones plaintively suggestive of loneliness. Little fires sprang up through the camp throwing grotesque shadows of huddled men trying to work up a semblance of enthusiasm over their crude cooking. Sanderson was similarly engaged over his own and Dickinson's share of rations, and groaned dismally over his occupation from time to time.
Suddenly Dickinson rose to his feet.
“That settles it!” he announced decisively.
“Hey, what's bitten you?” inquired Sanderson with but faint interest.
“Sandy, my son, we're goin' to have some supper after all.”
“Yes, I know. Hard tack and bully beef, with bully beef and hard tack for dessert.”
“Nope, not this time. I dunno what it's goin' to be, but it's somep'n different—I gotta strike the lode some time.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
Dickinson's eyes twinkled with a resurrected interest in life, and his whole bearing showed that his guardian angel had been ousted for the time being by the irresponsible imp that was always leading him into trouble.
“D'you see that old barn up there? Well, there's some one in it, an' he's got somep'n to eat.”
“Oh, rats! It's deserted, like everything else in this blasted country. The scouts——”
“I tell you they ain't a scout in the pack. Now listen. Before it fell dark I set here contemplatin' on the Infinite, same as this Dalai-Lama sharp we're goin' to call on at Lhassa does for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, an' I observes presently the gymnastics of a bunch of them magpies. They circles around an' alights somewheres out o' sight up there; then they rises with a squawk all in a flurry. That means somep'n alive, probably man. An' jest now I hears a sharp little yelp same as when you kick a yellow dog in the ribs for puttin' his nose in the cook-pot. That means meat. Spelt lower case, 'cause monks has always had a habit o' corrallin' the eats. An' I'm darn well goin' up an' roust the bloated hog out.”
“Are you sure?” whispered Sanderson with a momentary thrill of eager anticipation. Then he shook his head with a return of dejection. “But what's the use? The sentries will never let you out of the camp.”
Dickinson smiled easily.
“Man, them ain't sentries; them's sheep-herders. An' anyhow, in this kind o' ground with them rocks, sentries ain't no more use than for somep'n for the enemy to shoot at. Now you set quiet an' keep the fire a-goin' while I goes to market.”
Fifteen minutes later Dickinson crouched at the edge of the artificial level on which the monastery stood. Past master in the art of stalking as he was, he had experienced no difficulty in slipping between the sentries and out of the camp, though he had found it necessary to leave his rifle, which he could not keep from making an alarming clatter against the rocks in the dark. The danger of such a proceeding never entered into his head. Danger never seemed to figure in his irresponsible calculations; and the mischievous imp that led him into it always seemed to bring him back in at least repairable condition.
He listened, and was delightedly aware of low-muttered conversation inside. Like a snake he wormed himself over the ground and reached the door. The monastery was the typical long barrack, consisting of a single low-roofed hall with a door at either end, entirely bare of furniture or trappings except for a large image of the Buddha in the attitude of meditation. There was a small fire at the foot of the image, and before it sat two lamas, the younger of whom continually stirred something in a pot. Beside them on a mat lay what looked like the half of a kid around which a gaunt pie-dog circled hungrily.
Dickinson sniffed. The odor from the pot pervaded the room and filtered out through the cracked door with a most tantalizing invitation. He sniffed again, more deeply. And that was his undoing.
The dog burst out in the appalling clamor of mingled fear and defiance that only a nondescript cur is capable of. Sudden onslaught seemed Dickinson's only course now. He rushed in as if he were but the first of a whole company.
The old lama shrieked and cowered in a corner; the younger man leaped for the back door and wrestled with the fastenings. He tore it open and rushed to the assistance of the old man, who seemed paralyzed with fright; then noticing that in all this time nobody had followed Dickinson, he hesitated — he seemed brave enough — and jerked out something in Tibetan.
Dickinson waved his hands semaphorically with amiable intent and tried to indicate the provender.
From the camp below floated up a confused disturbance. This seemed to worry the lama. Suddenly he darted behind the image and emerged with a primeval wheel-lock blunderbus which he pointed threateningly.
The situation had suddenly become serious.
Dickinson crouched with a vague hope of dodging, and an infinite trust in his good angel—or rather devil.
“Now put that siege gun down,” he expostulated with a ridiculous disregard of time and place. “I'd hate to see you blow yourself up, an' if a splinter should hit me, I'm apt to get real vexed.”
The lama made a threatening movement, and Dickinson leaped aside, bringing himself nearer the old man who yelped aloud. Some one below fired a shot; and that settled it.
The blunderbus roared, and Dickinson felt a shrapnel blast of nails, pot-leg, and hammered wire hurtle past his head.
The next instant he had dived in and gripped the young priest around the waist.
Like all Tibetans, the man was sturdy as a tree, and willingly grappled with the lean white man whom he expected to break with ease; but Dickinson was of the drawn-wire type that possesses an amazing strength when put to it. Locked together, they fought all over the floor with cracking muscles.
Crash! They staggered against the image, which rocked from its base with the shock. They swung away, straining chest to chest, and fell over the old man who yelped again; but the very extremity of his fear gave him courage to beat at the white man's head with the heavy iron pen-case which hung at his girdle. Dickinson felt his mind slipping and gathered himself for an effort. He managed to release a leg and drive it against his new assailant's ribs with a force that rolled him gasping and wheezing right out at the door.
Then they shook free and sprang to their feet. Dickinson immediately rushed into a clinch to rest while his head cleared, and was whirled around by his opponent.
Crash! Against the image again. He felt better now, and put his leg back to get a purchase against his antagonist who was trying to crush him against the figure.
Crash! The whole thing came down this time, full over the culinary operations, and the two rolled together in a steaming wreckage of baked-clay sherds, and straw, and bundles of dirty cloth with which it was stuffed.
Dickinson was half stunned. The lama sprang to his feet with a yell of dismay, groped swiftly in the faint light thrown by the remnant of the fire for the bundles, and leaped out at the door.
When the excited storming party arrived from below they discovered Dickinson, lighted by a fast-diminishing stub of tallow candle, sitting among the ruins. In one hand he clasped a section of goat, and with the other he was pressing what had once been a handkerchief to a wide gash over his eye. The expression on his countenance was one of seraphic content.
“Gorblime! 'Enged if it ain't the bloomin' Yankee again!” exclaimed a soldier. “Strike me pink if 'e don't need a nurse, too——”
He was interrupted by an agonized shriek from a comrade who rushed forward and indignantly possessed himself of the candle.
“Ow, the robber! 'E's burnin' me taller dip wot 'e swiped!”
“'Ere, come orf it! Give us a light will yer!”
An officer arrived and pushed his way to the front. He surveyed the scene in astonishment; then he grimly assisted Dickinson to his feet, still clutching his precious piece of meat.
In this condition he was haled before Colonel Younghusband, to explain as best he might.
Half an hour later, his head neatly bandaged, Dickinson returned to his own fire-side, his features split in a wide grin.
“Little Willie's been a wicked, wicked boy,” he announced. “He has left undone those things which he ought to have done, an' he has done those things which he ought not to have done; he's been a non-combatant again; an' he's ruined all the discipline in the whole world. An' he's got to go right back home with tomorrow's despatches—special delivery on his account. The Colonel hadn't figured on sendin' for a day or two yet, but he reckons he can put on a spurt jest to get rid of me. He sure done me up proud.”
Sanderson looked at him in amazement.
“You seem darned happy about it,” he remarked.
“Well, you are hard to please. Look at the supper I got for us!”
“Dick, you're a genius for finding supper—and trouble; but will that recompense you for having to leave the remnant of your stock in charge of the Dorabis?”
The grin on Dickinson's face spread wider. He drew Sanderson by the sleeve into the shelter of the tent.
From some ragged receptacle in his shirt he produced a bundle of dirty cloth.
Slowly he unrolled it, and disclosed a little pile of rough turquoise pebbles.
“Guess they'll pay for the mules,” he chuckled. Then his eyes twinkled with a new delight. “I'll have ter tell the incipient lordling after it's all over an' we square up accounts. Won't he be mad!”
