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Show j A . TELEGRAM SERIAL ofgggg-yaj ahtsasaj tagjsH taaegaaaaea eaaaea ij, ePeEtRte 1 aTeLa? TO THE HILT CHra agaa -eajagew aaam aaea ssmsaaaawt eats saae saw sssss awaa Author ol ' Beau Getle" CHAPTER KIUHTKKN I If emeries ... And as honest, hard-working. If filthy camel men, they bad taken service under a, mtrchant -traveling watt ta Khiva, and thence north, skirting the Sea of Aral ta Orenburg Oren-burg en the Ural river, down which river they had come ta Uralsk and the net across the Steppea ta Saratov, Sara-tov, and from there peacefully down the Volga river ta Aatrakhan, by a little rutty ettamtr ta Baku and thence by road agala ta Tabria, Teheran, Mtshed, Htrat, and so back to Kabul. And from Kabul, Qui Mahommed and Share Khan, being for the moment weary ef travel, had proceeded ta Khalra-bad Khalra-bad la Khalraatan, af which amall And Uaneah had talked about digging the whole thing up again and had asked him a number of questions about hla being found dead drunk, and exactly what had been the relations between him and the Eurasian medical officer who had beea la the fort with him at the time. And although he had been pretty rettlve undee Canaah'a cross-questioning, that astute and wily man had confirmed In hla mind aa a certainty what had hitherto hith-erto been a conjecture, that Breck-lnge, Breck-lnge, the Eurasian doctor, bad givsn him a powerful narcotic that had not only put him to aleep for s hours, but poisoned him sufficiently sufficient-ly to affect hia mind and memory for quite a while. And, ponderously shaking hla wiae old head, Canaah had gone off about hia Intelligence business, very angry with nlra and bidding him wait; Just wait and sea And thea weeks or months later had come Ganeah'a subordinate, Mahbub Alt, bidding him to Join Canish aa quickly as he could and with as many staunch man aa ha could bring to awell the army of the Singing Hadji of Suftd Kot, who was about to baaiege Giltrasa fort. fptrt of tht border country Shere Khan'a fatbtr was the khan. Memories ... Of Oanesh Haselrlgg coming to Khairabad In the guise of a holy pir, and thsre being some talk of keeping him permanently that he might occupy a ahrine which ahould become sacred as a place af pilgrimage pil-grimage and a source of revenue to Khairabad. Of how, on general principles, he had opposed the suggestion that the holy man ahould be butchered ta make a Khairabad Holy day and be the piece de resistance of a shrine, and had bidden Shere Khan ta warn the holy man In the morning morn-ing that It would be a splendid Idea for him ta go while the going wss good. And that was an amusing thing, that be, Richard Wendover, as Gul Mahommed the Path an, ahould have saved the life of Bartholomew Haselrlgg as the Plr Saleh ud Din All Mousse, without knowing who he waa. It had been rather splendid, eld Ganeah'a faith ia him, probably the eoly man who hadn't accepted the court martial'a findings as correct cor-rect and Its aentence aa Just; the only human being except Shere Khan, and excluding possibly ene woman. Sybil Ffoulkes might have had doubts. Yea he had beta sure she would. Well, It cut no Ice now, of course, but It was hsart warming ta know that Ganeah had believed in him all through aa it waa interesting to wonder whether Sybil Ffoulkes had done so. better than existence as sn Eng-l Eng-l ism an. He was a hlllman now, and So and no otherwise sa and no othsrwias, hillmtn desire their hills. And thsn there wss Shere Khan. Could ha turn to him after all they had seen and done together, dared and suffered together, after each saving the life of the other at the riak of his own; could he turn to 8htre Khan and say: "Wall, I'm off. I'm going back ta India and the regiment," knowing that there was no return to the regiment regi-ment for Shere Khan? He had deserted de-serted when Wendover was cashiered cash-iered and kicked out, had stood by him and shown him how to make a new adjustment to life. And lastly, what was possibly ths stongest motive, probably the real motive had beea his consuming hatred of Ballitiin. his Insatiable yearning te deal faithfully with Bailitxin, to cut out the canker that corroded his soul far more than had the Injury which Brock-Inge Brock-Inge had done him. Anyway, he stuck ta his point. He had gone his own way and. In tpite of what the brigadier and Ganeah Ga-neah had aaid to him after the relief re-lief or Giltrasa, he had slipped quietly away from the fort with Shore Khen. He had retired to Shere Khan's fort and settled down te the peaceful life of a border clansman whose rifle ia never far from his hand. And again Shere Khan had helped him, had saved him, restored his sense of proportion and mental balance. That winter morning, when as they sat sunning thsmsehree upon the fort wall, suddenly aa if reading read-ing bis very thoughts, Short Khan had aaid: "Husoor, the hour has struck. He himself has come south aad ia even now In KabuL" "Bailltsin?" "None other. Last night ore we returned from hawking, one came with a message, left It and passed on In haste. By the description of the man and what he said, twas that Mahbub All, Haselrlgg Sahib's man, who was with us at Giltrasa before we got Into tba fort" Ta be continued Tuesday. Copyright, 1US, for The Telegram. Honor Redeemed Memories again surged through Richard Wendover's mind. Giltrasa fort! By the time he had reached Ganeah half its defenders were dead, including Major Den-borough. Den-borough. Captain Scott and Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Henderson, leaving no one in charge of the native officers except ex-cept ("apt ale Alexander Brock-Inge, Brock-Inge, IMS, the Eurasiaa doctor. And thea Breckinge'a amasing deed. No one would ever know whether he went mad, berserk; whether be hoped to rehabilitate himself, or whether In those tremendous tre-mendous moments, the spirit of his grandfather, General Sir Percy Vereker Breckinge, had risen up within him and seised the captaincy) cap-taincy) ef his soul Probably all three motives had contributed, with the last-named most powerful, as his dying words had been: "I am a gtntral't grandson." ' Yes, and whoa the relieving force had marched la and Ganeah had loome ta hia bedside overflowing with Joy, congratulations and triumph, tri-umph, hew the good chap's face had fallen when he had told him that he wasn't going to use Brock-Inge's Brock-Inge's confession. Nor get himself reinstated la a blaxa of glory as the Innocent hero of a shameful miscarriage af Justice and the noble hero ef the defense and salvation of the fort that Breckinge bad wished te surrender to the clinging Hadji. ' Nor had he been quite honest with Ganeah. He had pretended that his main reason had beea that he really couldn't use the confession and blacken and damn forever tht memory of the maa who had died in the act of aaving his life. In the first piece, he shrank from the Idea of more publicity, another court martial. And again, aapecially after the horrible confinement of the aiega, he loaged for the mountains. moun-tains. No, whatever It may have beea at 'first, lite as a Pathaa. waa svow |