bloomin' won't, ye long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar you. 'Ark to 'im 'owling!"

66

'Wot's the good of argyfying? Put a bullet into the swine! 'E's keepin' us awake!" said another voice. A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry 5 whined from the darkness

'Tain't no good, sir. I can't see 'im. 'E's 'idin' somewhere down 'ill."

Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket.

to get 'im, sir?" said he.

'Shall I try

"" No," was the answer; lie down. I won't have the whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends."

ΙΟ

Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the tent wall, he called, as a 'bus conductor 15 calls in a block, "'Igher up, there! 'Igher up!"

The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots, for the Aurang- 20 abadis were very angry with him for disgracing their colors.

"An' that's all right," said Ortheris, withdrawing his head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. "S'elp me Gawd, tho', that man's not fit to 25 live-messin' with my beauty-sleep this way."

"Go out and shoot him in the morning, then," said the subaltern, incautiously. Silence in the tents now! Get your rest, men!"

Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in 30 two minutes there was no sound except the rain on the canvas and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of Learoyd.

The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and

for a week had been waiting for a flying column to make connection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his friends had become a nuisance.

In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sun5 shine and cleaned their grimy accouterments. The native regiment was to take its turn of road-making that day while the Old Regiment loafed.

"I'm goin' to lay fer a shot at that man," said Ortheris, when he had finished washing out his rifle. "'E comes 10 up the water-course every evenin' about five o'clock. If we go and lie out on the north 'ill a bit this afternoon we'll get 'im."

"You're a bloodthirsty little mosquito," said Mulvaney, blowing blue clouds into the air. "But I suppose 15 I will have to come wid you. Fwhere's Jock?"

"Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks 'isself a bloomin' marksman," said Ortheris, with scorn.

The “Mixed Pickles" were a detachment of picked shots, generally employed in clearing spurs of hills when 20 the enemy were too impertinent. This taught the young officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy much harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of camp, and passed the Aurangabadis going to their road-making.

"You've got to sweat to-day," said Ortheris, genially. 25" We're going to get your man. You didn't knock 'im out last night by any chance, any of you?" "No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one shot at him," said a private. "He's my cousin, and I ought to have cleared our dishonor. But good luck to 30 you."

They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris leading, because, as he explained, " this is a long-range show, an' I've got to do it." His was an almost passionate devotion to his rifle, which, by barrack-room report, he was

supposed to kiss every night before turning in. Charges and scuffles he held in contempt, and, when they were inevitable, slipped between Mulvaney and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well as their own. They never failed him. He trotted along, questing like a hound 5 on a broken trail, through the wood of the north hill. At last he was satisfied, and threw himself down on the soft pine-needle slope that commanded a clear view of the water-course and a brown bare hillside beyond it. The trees made a scented darkness in which an army corps 10 could have hidden from the sun-glare without. "'E's

"'Ere's the tail o' the wood," said Ortheris. got to come up the water-course, 'cause it gives 'im cover. We'll lay 'ere. 'Tain't not 'arf so bloomin' dusty neither."

He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white violets. No one had come to tell the flowers that the season of their strength was long past, and they had bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines.

15

"This is something like," he said, luxuriously. "Wot 20 a 'evinly clear drop for a bullet acrost. How much d' you make it, Mulvaney?"

Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekase the air's so thin."

Wop! wop! wop! went a volley of musketry on the 25 rear face of the north hill.

"Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll scare 'arf the country."

"Thry a sightin' shot in the middle of the row," said Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. "There's a red rock 30 yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick!"

Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and fired. The bullet threw up a feather of dust by a clump of gentians at the base of the rock.

"Good enough!" said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. "You snick your sights to mine, or a little lower. You're always firin' high. But remember, first shot to me. Oh, Lordy! but it's a lovely afternoon."

5 The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a tramping of men in the wood. The two lay very quiet, for they knew that the British soldier is desperately prone to fire at anything that moves or calls. Then Learoyd appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by a bullet, 10 looking ashamed of himself. He flung down on the pine-needles, breathing in snorts.

"One o' them damned gardeners o' th' Pickles," said he, fingering the rent. "Firin' to th' right flank, when he knowed I was there. If I knew who he was I'd 'a' ripped 15 the hide off 'un. Look at ma tunic!"

"That's the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an' he'll loose on anythin' he sees or hears up to th' mile. You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay 20 here."

'Bin firin' at the bloomin' wind in the bloomin' treetops," said Ortheris, with a chuckle. "I'll show you some firin' later on."

They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun 25 warmed them where they lay. The Mixed Pickles ceased firing and returned to camp, and left the wood to a few scared apes. The water-course lifted up its voice in the silence and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the dull thump of a blasting charge three miles away told 30 that the Aurangabadis were in difficulties with their roadmaking. The men smiled as they listened, and lay still soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd, between the whiffs of his pipe:

Seems queer-about 'im yonder-desertin' at all."

"'E'll be a bloomin' side queerer when I've done with 'im," said Ortheris. They were talking in whispers, for the stillness of the wood and the desire of slaughter lay heavy upon them.

"I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin'; 5 but, my faith! I make less doubt ivry man has good reason for killin' him," said Mulvaney.

Happen there was a lass tewed up wi' it. Men do more than that for th' sake of a lass."

'They make most av of us 'list. They've no manner 10 av right to make us desert.'

"Ah, they make us 'list, or their fathers do," said Learoyd, softly, his helmet over his eyes.

Ortheris' brows contracted savagely. He was watching the valley. "If it's a girl, I'll shoot the beggar 15 twice over, an' second time for bein' a fool. You're blasted sentimental all of a sudden. Thinkin' o' your last near shave?"

Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin' o' what had happened."

20

"An' fwhat has happened, ye lumberin' child av calamity, that you're lowing like a cow-calf at the back av the pasture, an' suggestin' invidious excuses for the man Stanley's goin' to kill. Ye'll have to wait another hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an' bellow melojus 25 to the moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you. Discourse, Don Juan! The a-moors of Lotharius Learoyd. Stanley, kape a rowlin' rig'mental eye on the valley."

"It's along o' yon hill there," said Learoyd, watching 30 the bare sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his Yorkshire moors. He was speaking more to himself than his fellows. "Ay," said he; Rumbolds Moor stands up ower Skipton town, an' Greenhow Hill stands