harm. Go with her and be well fed.'

'Come!' said William, panting, with a wrathful glance at Scott, who
stood helpless and, as it were, hamstrung.

'Go back,' said Scott quickly to William. 'I'll send the little
chap over in a minute.'

The tone of authority had its effect, but in a way Scott did not
exactly intend. The boy loosened his grasp, and said with gravity,
'I did not know the woman was thine. I will go.' Then he cried to
his companions, a mob of three-, four-, and five-year-olds waiting
on the success of his venture ere they stampeded: 'Go back and eat.
It is our man's woman. She will obey his orders.'

Jim collapsed where he sat; Faiz Ullah and the two policemen grinned;
and Scott's orders to the cartmen flew like hail.

'That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is told in their
presence,' said Faiz Ullah. 'The time comes that I must seek new
service. Young wives, especially such as speak our language and have
knowledge of the ways of the Police, make great trouble for honest
butlers in the matter of weekly accounts.'

What William thought of it all she did not say, but when her brother,
ten days later, came to camp for orders, and heard of Scott's
performances, he said, laughing: 'Well, that settles it. He'll be
_Bakri_ Scott to the end of his days' (_Bakri_, in the northern
vernacular, means a goat). 'What a lark! I'd have given a month's pay
to have seen him nursing famine babies. I fed some with _conjee_