Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-02-16

SoluS VIII me- lHeu.
NAY, | am her man. She waits for
me!'
Il imagine she waits for me :"
laughed King. forward! We have
rested in this place long enough"
1t was ten of blazing forenoon, and
the sun had heated up the rocks until
1t was pain to walk ON them and agony
to sit, when they topped the last es-
carpment and came in sight of kim
jams walls, across mile-wide rock
ravine-Khinjan the unregenerate,
that has no other human habitation
within march because none dare
build.
It was midday when at last they
stood on bottom and swayed like men
in dream lingering their bruises and
scarcely able for the heat haze to see
the tangled mass Of stone towers and
mud-and-stone walls that faced them,
a mile away. They were nearly across
the valley, hunting for shadow where
none was to be found, when shotted
salute brought them up outstanding in
a cluster. Six or eight nickel-coated
bullets spattered on the rocks close by,
and one so narrowly missed King that
he could feel it's wind.
Up went all their hands together,
and they held them so until they ached.
Nothing whatever happened. Their
arms ceased aching and grew numb.
They advanced another two hundred
yards and another volley ratified among
the rocks on either hand, frightening
one of the mules so that it stumbled
and fell and had to be helped up again.
When that was done, and the mule
stood trembling, they all faced the
wall. But they were too weary to hold
their hands up any more. Thirst had
begun to exercise its sway. One Of
the men was half delirious.
"Who are ye?" howled human be-
ing, whose voice was so like a VOLTS
that the words at first had no meaning.
He peered over the parapet, hundred
feet above, with his head SO swathed
in dirty linen that he looked like a
bandaged corpse.
"What will We? Who comes unin-
vited into Khinjan?"
King bethought him Of Yasimini's
talisman. He held 1t up, and the gold
band glinted In the sun. Yet, although
a Hillman's eyes are keener than an
eagles, he did not believe the thing
could be recognized at that angle, and
from that distance. Another thought
suggested itself to him. He turned his
head and caught Ismail in the act Of
signaling with both hands.
"Ye may comet" howled the watch
man on the parapet, disappearing in
stantly.
King neutrality-suspicious. as race
horse trembles at the starting gate,
though he was weary enough to trem-
BILE from fatigue. But that passed. He
was all in hand when he led his men
up over q rough stone causeway to a
door In the bottom of a high battle
mented wall and waited for somebody
to open 4.
The great teak door looked as If it
had been stolen from some Hindu tenn
pie, and he wondered how AMI when
they could have brought it there across
those savage intervening miles. High
above the door was ledge Of rock
that crossed like bridge from wall to
wall, with parapet of stone built
IfDOn IT, nierced for riffc-frp
AS they approached a Hangar tur-
ban, not unlike Kings own, appeared
above the parapet on the ledge and
voice he recognized hailed him good
humoredly.
"Salaam aleikoum !"
"AnG upon thee be peace! p King an
swered In the Pashtu tonRno for the
Hills" are polite, whatever the other
principles.
Rewa Ggnga's face beamed down on
him, wreathed in smiles that seemed to
include mockery as well as triumph.
Looking up at him at an angle that
made his neck ache and dazzIed his
eyes, King could not be sure, but 1t
seemed to him that the smile said
Here you are, my man, and aren't you
in for it? He more than half sus-
pected he was intended to understand
that. But the Rangers conversation
took another line.
by jovew he chuckled. "She ex-
pected you. She guessed you are
hound who can hunt well on a dry
scent and she dared bet you will come