Chapter Two.

Through Flood.

Ernest Aurelius Upward was the chief official in charge of the Government forests of Baluchistan.

Now the said “forests” had about as much affinity to the idea of sylvan wildness conveyed by that term as many of the Highland so-called deer forests; in that they were mainly distinguishable by a conspicuous lack of trees; such trees as there were consisting wellnigh entirely of the stunted, profitless, and utterly unpicturesque juniper, which straggling over the slopes of the hills and devoid of undergrowth imparted to the arid and stony landscape somewhat of the aspect of a vast continental burying-ground, badly kept and three parts forgotten.

Being thus devoid of undergrowth, the land was proportionately depleted of wild life, since game requires covert. This added not to its attractions in the eyes of Ernest Aurelius, who was a keen Nimrod. He had been a mighty slayer of tiger during an experience of many years spent in the Indian forest service. Long indeed was the death roll of “Stripes” when that energetic official was around with rifle and camp outfit among the jungly hills of his North West Province section. Of panther he had long since ceased to keep count, while cheetul or blackbuck he reckoned in with such small game as partridge or snipe. We have said that the great rugged slopes and towering crags of his present charge still held the markhôr and wild mountain sheep; but Upward was not so young as he had been and remembering the fine times he had had with the far easier shikar of the lower country, frankly declared his distaste for the hard labour involved in swarming up all manner of inaccessible heights at all sorts of unearthly hours of the day or night on the off-chance of one precarious shot. So the gadh and markhôr, so far as he was concerned, went unmolested.

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