But its lack of sport notwithstanding, his present charge had its compensations. Life in camp among these elevated mountain ranges was healthful and not unpleasant. At an altitude of anything up to 8,000 feet the air stirred keen and fresh, and the climate of Shâlalai, the cantonment station where he had his headquarters in the shape of a snug, roomy bungalow and a garden in which he took much pride, was appreciated alike by himself and others, to whom recollection was still vivid of the torrid, enervating exhaustion of plains stations. Furthermore his term of retirement was not many years distant and on the whole, Upward found no great reason for discontent.
And now as we first make his personal acquaintance, he is riding slowly across the valley bottom towards his camp. His mackintosh is streaming with wet, and the collar tucked up to his ears, for the rain is falling in a steady pitiless downpour. Two men of his Pathân forest guard walk behind, one carrying his master’s gun, the other a few brace of chikór or grey partridge, an abominable unsporting biped, whom no amount of education will convince of his duty to rise and be shot. The evening has closed in wet and stormy, and the lightning gleam sheds its red blaze upon the white tents of the camp. These tents, in number about a dozen, are pitched among the trees of an apricot tope, whose leafage is just beginning to bud forth anew after the devastations of a flight of locusts. In front the valley bottom is open and comparatively level but behind, the mountain range rises rugged and abrupt – its face cleft by the black jaws of a fine tangi, narrow, but with perpendicular sides rising to an altitude of several hundred feet. This picturesquely forbidding chasm acts in rainy weather as a feeder to the now dry watercourse on whose bank the camp is pitched.
The lamps are already lighted, and in one of the larger tents a lady is seated reading. She looks up as Upward enters.
“What sport have you had, Ernest?”
“Only seven brace and a half.”
“Oh come, that’s not so bad. Are you very wet?”
“No – but my Terai hat is about spoiled; wish I had put on another,” flinging off the soaked headgear in question. “These beastly storms crop up every afternoon now, and always at the same time. There’s no fun in going out shooting. Khola, Peg lao.”
The well trained bearer, who has been assisting his master out of his soaked mackintosh, moves swiftly and noiselessly in quest of the needed “peg.”
“Well, I’ll go and change. Where are the girls?”
“In their own tent. Hurry up though. Dinner must be quite ready.”
By the time Upward is dried and toiletted – a process which does not take him long – “the girls” are in. Two of them are not yet out of the short frock stage. These are his own children, and are aged fourteen and twelve respectively. The third, however, who is a couple of years beyond her teens, is no relation, but a guest.
“Did you have any sport, Mr Upward?” says the latter, as they sat down to table.
“No – there’s no sport in chikór shooting. The chikór is the most unsporting bird in the world. He won’t rise to be shot at.”
“What on earth do we stay on here for then?” says the elder of the two children, who, like many Indian and colonially raised children, is not slow to volunteer an opinion. “I wish we were going back to Shâlalai to-morrow.”
“So do I,” cuts in the other promptly.
“Oh – do you!” responds her parent mingling for himself a “peg” – “Why, the other day you were all for getting into camp. You were sick of Shâlalai, and everybody in it.”
“Well, we are not now. It’s beastly here, and always raining,” says the younger one, teasing a little fox terrier under the table until it yelps and snarls.
“Do go on with your dinner, Hazel, and leave the dog alone,” urges her mother in the mildest tone of gentle remonstrance.
“Oh, all right,” with a pout and flounce. She is a queer, dark-complexioned little elf is Hazel, with a vast mane of hair nearly as large as herself – and loth to accept reproof or injunction without protest – The other laughs meaningly, and then a squabble arises – for they are prone to squabbling – which is finally quelled.
“Well, and what do you think, Miss Cheriton?” says Upward turning to their guest, when this desirable result has been achieved. “Are you sick of camp yet?”
“N-no – I don’t think I am – At least – of course I’m not.”
“I’m afraid Nesta does find it slow,” puts in Mrs Upward – But before Nesta Cheriton can utter a disclaimer, the other of the two children gives a whistle.
“Lily, my dear girl!” expostulates her mother.
“I can’t help it. Slow? I should think Nesta did find it slow. Why, she was only saying this morning she’d give ten years of her life for a little excitement.”
“Lily is simply ‘embroidering,’ Mr Upward,” pleads Nesta, with a bright laugh. “I said – at anytime – not only now or here.”
“We could have found you excitement enough in some of my other districts. You could have come after tiger with me.”
“Oh no – no! That isn’t the kind of thing I mean – And I can’t think how Mrs Upward could have done it” – with a glance at the latter. For this gentle, refined looking woman with the pretty eyes and soft, charmful manner, had stood by her husband’s side when the striped demon of the jungle, maddened with his wounds, ears laid back and eyes flashing green flame, had swooped upon them in lightning charge, uttering that awful coughing roar calculated to unnerve the stoutest of hearts – to drop, as though lightning-struck, before the heavy Express bullet directed by a steady hand and unflinching brain.
“Well, the kind of excitement you mean will roll up in a day or two in the shape of Bracebrydge and Fleming” – replies Upward, with a genial twinkle in his eyes – “they want to come after the chikór. It’s rather a nuisance – This place won’t carry two camps. But I say, Miss Cheriton, those fellows wont do any chikór shooting.”
“Why not? – Isn’t that what they are coming for?”
“Oh, yes. But then, you see, when the time comes to go out, each of them will make some excuse to remain behind – or to double back. Neither will want to leave the field open to the other.”
“Ah, but – I don’t care for either of them,” laughed Nesta, not pretending to misunderstand his meaning.
“Not? Why everybody is in love with Bracebrydge – or he thinks they are – There’s only one thing I must warn you against, and that is not to spell his name with an ‘I’. There are two girls in Shâlalai to my knowledge who wrecked all their chances on that rock.”
“Nonsense Ernest” – laughed his wife. “How can you talk such a lot of rubbish? To talk sense now. I wonder when Mr Campian will turn up?”
“Any day or no day. Campian’s such an uncertain bird. He never knows his own plans himself. If he didn’t know whether he was coming overland from Bombay or round by sea to Karachi, I don’t see how I can. Anyway, I wrote him to the B.I. agents at Karachi telling him how to get to Shâlalai, and left a letter there for him telling him how to get here. I couldn’t do more. Khola, cheroot, lao.”
Dinner was over now, and very snug the interior of the tent looked in the cheerful lamplight, as Upward, selecting a cheroot from the box the bearer had just deposited in front of him, proceeded to puff away contentedly. The rain pattered with monotonous regularity on the canvas, and, reverberating among the crags, the thunder rolled in deep-toned boom.
“Beastly sort of night,” said Upward, flicking the ash from his cheroot. “The storm’s passing over though. By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder if it brought the tangi down. It must be falling heavy in that catchment area.”
A shade of alarm came into Nesta Cheriton’s face.
“Should