My chief came back, all brown with living in the open air, and
very angry at finding it so hot in the plains. That same
afternoon we three and Kadir Buksh began to pack for our month's
holiday, Vixen rolling in and out of the bullock-trunk twenty
times a minute, and Garm grinning all over and thumping on the
floor with his tail. Vixen knew the routine of travelling as well
as she knew my office-work. She went to the station, singing
songs, on the front seat of the carriage, while Garin sat with
me. She hurried into the railway carriage, saw Kadir Buksh make
up my bed for the night, got her drink of water, and curled up
with her black-patch eye on the tumult of the platform. Garin
followed her (the crowd gave him a lane all to himself) and sat
down on the pillows with his eyes blazing, and his tail a haze
behind him.

We came to Umballa in the hot misty dawn, four or five men, who
had been working hard fox eleven months, shouting for our
dales--the two-horse travelling carriages that were to take us up
to Kalka at the foot of the Hills. It was all new to Garm. He did
not understand carriages where you lay at full length on your
bedding, but Vixen knew and hopped into her place at once; Garin
following. The Kalka Road, before the railway was built, was
about forty-seven miles long, and the horses were changed every
eight miles. Most of them jibbed, and kicked, and plunged, but
they had to go, and they went rather better than usual for Garm's
deep bay in their rear.

There was a river to be forded, and four bullocks pulled the
carriage, and Vixen stuck her head out of the sliding-door and