A cold wind swept down the PeirÂk valley, driving the last leaves from the birch trees, which, filling the gully, crept some short way up the steep ascent to the Pass, where the ridges of grey-blue slate seemed almost a part of the staring blue sky against which they showed like a serrated line of shadow. Nearer at hand the slopes of withered bent were broken by sharp fang-like rocks gathering themselves in the distance into immature peaks and passes. Here and there a patch of dirty snow, having borne the burden and heat of summer, lay awaiting a fresh robe of white at the hands of the fast-coming winter. Already the round black tents of the pasture-seeking tribes were in full retreat to the plains, and the valley lay still and silent, without even the sweep of a hawk in its solitary circle, or the bird-like whistle of a marmot sunning itself on the rocks. Ere long the snow would wrap all in its soft white mantle, and the bunting, paired with its own shadow, flicker over the glistening drifts.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the season the PeirÂk was not utterly deserted. In a sheltered bit behind a cluster of rocks sat two young men. One, despite the sheepskin coat and turban-wound peaked cap of the Afghan, showed unmistakable signs of alien blood in the steady gaze of a pair of brown eyes, and a white line of clean skin where the fur collar met his neck. It was our old friend Dick Smith, and he was on the watch for the last British regiment which was to cross the Pass in order to strengthen the little garrison beyond, before winter set her silver key upon the mountains. His companion carried his nationality in his face, for even when Afzul KhÂn had condescended to wear the uniform of a Sikh soldier no one could have mistaken the evidence of his long, straight nose and cruel, crafty expression, in which, however, lurked little hint of sensuality.

"You are deeply interested in this particular regiment," remarked Dick in fair Pushtu. "What's up, Afzul?"

"Nothing, Huzoor. A fool who called himself my relative took service once with your Sirkar. Mayhap in this regiment--God knows! It does not matter if it was."

The studied indifference made his hearer smile. "You are a queer lot, you Pathans," he said lazily. "Not much family affection; not much welcome for a long-lost brother, eh, Afzul?"

"The Presence should remember there are Pathans and Pathans. He has not seen my people; they are not here." He spread a well-shaped nervous hand emphatically east, west, and south.

"Tarred with the same brush north, I expect," muttered the Englishman to himself.

Afzul KhÂn frowned. "These are my enemies," he went on. "But for the Sirkar,--chk!" He gave a curious sound, half click, half gurgle, and drew an illustrative finger across his throat. It was rather a ghastly performance.

"Then why stop?"

Afzul KhÂn plucked at the withered bents carelessly. "Because--because it suits this slave; because the merciful Presence is my master; because I may as well wait here as anywhere else."

"What are you waiting for?"

He showed all his long white teeth in a grin. "Promotion, Huzoor. It should come speedily, since but yesterday the sahib said I was worth all the rest of the gang."

"I must be more careful. Where the dickens did you pick up English, Afzul?"

"From you, Huzoor." A statement so irredeemably fictitious that it made Dick thoughtful.

"You're sharp enough, Heaven knows; but I don't understand why you wanted to learn signalling. Are you going to give up your jezail and become a bÂbu?"

Afzul KhÂn fingered the matchlock which lay beside him. "I have changed my mind," he said shortly. "I will leave it to the Presence to bring down fire from Heaven; I bring it from this flash-in-the-pan."

"Now what can you know about Prometheus?"

He shook his head. "The Presence speaks riddles. The fire comes to some folk, to many of the sahibs--to you, perhaps. God knows! The Pathans are different. Our work is fighting."

Dick, looking at his companion's sinewy strength, thought it not unlikely. "While we are waiting, Afzul," he said idly, "tell me the finest fight you ever were in. Don't be modest; out with it!"

"Wherefore not? Victory is Fate, and only women hang their heads over success. The best fight, you say? 'Twas over yonder to the north. There is a dip; but one way up and down. Twenty of us Barakzais and they were fifteen; but they were ahead of us in count, for, by Allah! their wives were so ugly that we didn't care to carry them off."

"Why should you?"

"'Twas a feud. Once, God knows when, a BudakshÂn Nurzai carried off one of ours and began it. If the women ran out, we killed the men instead. So it was a moonlight night, and the fifteen were fast asleep, snoring like hogs. By Allah! my heart beat as we crept behind the rocks on our bellies, knowing that a rolling stone might waken them. But God was good, and chk! they bled to death, like the pigs they were, before their eyes were wide open."

Dick Smith stared incredulously. "You call that the best fight you ever were in? I call it--" The epithet remained unspoken as he started to his feet with a shout. "By George! I see the glitter. Yonder, Afzul! by the turn. Hurrah! hurrah!"

He was off at long swinging strides, careless of the fact that the Pathan never moved. The latter's keen eyes followed the lad with a certain regret, and then turned to the straggling file of soldiers now plainly visible.

"Marsden sahib with the advance guard," he muttered. "Why did I give in to those cursed hawk's eyes when my bullet was all but in his heart! Wah-illah! his bravery made me a coward, and now my life is his. But I will return it, and then we shall cry quits. Yonder's the subadÂr. By God! my knife will be in his big belly ere long, and some of those gibing PunjÂbis shall jest no more."

So he watched them keenly with a fierce joy, while Dick tore down the hill, to be brought, by an ominous rattle among the rifles below, to a remembrance of his dress. Then he waited, hands down, in the open, until the advance guard came within hail of his friendly voice; when he received the whole regiment with open arms, as if the PeirÂk were his special property. Perhaps he had some right to consider it so, seeing that he was the only Englishman who had ever attempted to make those barren heights his head-quarters. But, as he explained to Philip Marsden, while they climbed the narrow gully hemmed in by perpendicular rocks which led to the summit, the breaks in communication from storms and other causes had been so constant, that he had cut himself adrift from head-quarters at Jumwar in order to be on the spot, and so avoid the constant worry of small expeditions with an escort; without which he was not allowed to traverse the unsettled country on either side.

"Here I am safe enough," he said with a laugh; "and if I could only get my assistant, a Bengali bÂbu, to live at the other hut I have built on the northern descent, we could defy all difficulties. But he is in such a blind funk that if I go out he retires to bed and locks the door. The only time he is happy is when a regiment is on the road."

"Then his happiness is doomed for this year,--unless you use discretion and come on with us to Jumwar. I doubt your being safe here much longer."

Dick shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not, and of course I shall have to cut and run before the snow; but I like the life, and it gives me time. I've been at work on a field-instrument--" here his eyes lit up, and his tongue ran away with him over insulators and circuits.

Major Marsden looked at the lad approvingly, thinking how different he was from the slouching sullen boy of six months back. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Dick," he said with a half-smile; "but I've no doubt it will be very useful, if, as you say, it enables you to tap the wires anywhere with speed and certainty."

Dick gave a fine blush. "I beg your pardon, but these things get into my head. It will work though, I'm sure of it. I'd show you if it was here, but I left it at the other shanty. There's a stretch of low level line across the Pass where I was testing it."

The half-aggrieved eagerness in his voice made Philip smile. They were sitting together under the lee of a rock on the summit while a halt was called, in order to give time for the long caravan-like file, encumbered by baggage ponies, to reach the top and so ensure an unbroken line during the descent. For in these mountain marches the least breach of continuity is almost certain to bring down on the detached portion an attack from the robbers who are always on the watch for such an opportunity.

"You had best come with us, Dick," said Philip, returning to the point after a pause.

"No! The fact is I want to be certain of the communication until you are safe in Jumwar. Those two marches, between your next camp and the city, are risky. I have my doubts of the people."

"Doubts shared by head-quarters apparently, for the chief got a telegram yesterday to await orders at Jusraoli. I expect they are going to send to meet us from Jumwar."

"I wish I'd known in time," replied Dick lightly; "in that case there is not much reason for staying. Yet I don't know; I'd rather stick on till I am forced to quit."

"That won't be long; the snow's due already, and you are coming on with us so far in any case, aren't you?"

Dick sat idly chucking stones and watching them leap from point to point of the cliffs below him. "I don't think I shall, if you are to be in camp Jusraoli for some days. You see, my bÂbu is no use, and something might turn up. I'll see you across the Pass and come back. I could join you later on if I made up my mind to cut." He lay back with his arms under his head and looked up into the brilliant blue cloudless sky. "Major," he said suddenly, after a pause, "do you know that you have never asked after Belle?"

"Haven't I? The fact is I had news of her lately. Raby wrote to me a few days ago."

"I wouldn't trust Raby if I were you. Did he tell you that Belle hadn't a penny and was trying to be independent of charity by teaching?"

"I am very sorry to hear it."

Dick sat up with quite a scared look on his honest face. "I thought there must be something wrong between you two by her letters," he said in a low voice; "but I didn't think it was so bad as that. What is it?"

"Really, my dear boy, I don't feel called upon to answer that question."

"It's beastly impertinent, of course," allowed Dick; "but see here, Major, you are the best friend I have, and she,--why, I love her more dearly every day. So you see there must be a mistake."

The logic was doubtful, but the faith touched Philip's heart. "And so you love her more than ever?" he asked evasively.

"Why not? I seem somehow nearer to her now, not so hopelessly beneath her in every way. And I can help her a little by sending money to Aunt Lucilla. She wouldn't take a penny, of course. But they tell me that when my grandfather,--I mean my mother's father--dies I might come in for a few rupees; so I have made my will leaving anything in your charge for Belle. You don't mind, do you?"

Philip Marsden felt distinctly annoyed. Here was fate once again meddling with his freedom. "I'm afraid I do. To begin with, I may be lying with a bullet through me before the week's out."

"So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. I'd sooner trust you than any one in the wide world. You would be certain to do what I would like."

"Should I? I'm not so sure of myself. Look here, Dick! I didn't mean to tell you, but perhaps it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. The fact is we are rivals." He laughed cynically at his hearer's blank look of surprise. "Yes,--don't be downcast, my dear fellow; you've a better chance than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively; and upon my word, I believe I'm glad of it. Let's talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes the bugle."

He started to his feet, leaving Dick a prey to very mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was too perfect for anything else; and she? Something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So nothing further was said between them till on the northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good-bye. Then Dick with some solemnity put a blue official envelope into his friend's hand. "It's the will, Major. I think it's all right; I got the bÂbu to witness it. And of course the--the other--doesn't make any difference. You see I shall write and tell her it is all a mistake."

The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt indescribably mean. "Don't be in a hurry, Dick," he said slowly. "You can think it over and give it me when you join us, for join us you must. I won't take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as you call it, the mistake would be to have it changed. Whatever happens she will never get anything better than what you give her, Dick--never!--never! Good-bye; take care of yourself."

As he watched the young fellow go swinging along the path with his head up, he told himself that others beside Belle would be the losers if anything happened to Dick Smith; who, for all the world had cared, might at that moment have been lying dead-drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is something," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with the freshness of extreme youth. It has gone from me hopelessly, and I am so much the worse for it." And Dick, meanwhile, was telling himself with a pang at his heart that no girl, Belle least of all, could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his hero.