young Englishmen, little more than lads, who had no concern in his business, and were indeed strangers to the country. He regarded it as a very unfortunate coincidence that they arrived in Rawal Pindi at the moment of his setting out, and that the road they proposed to follow in their further journey northward would be for several days the same as his own. They were travelling at their own risk; it was no part of his duty to safeguard them; but he could do no less than suggest that they should accompany him over so much of the road as was common to their party and his. Privately he wished them at Halifax.

His attitude was after all more political than personal. Great changes had recently occurred in the politics of Central Asia. The fall of the Manchu dynasty and the establishment of a Republic in China had resulted in the secession of the princes of Mongolia. They had first placed themselves under the protection of Russia, only to find that they had exchanged King Log for King Stork. Russia had sufficiently recovered from the staggering effects of the Japanese war to recommence her forward movement in Asia, which for long had seemed as gradual and as irresistible as the encroachment of the tide upon a sandy beach. The Mongols soon came to loggerheads with their adopted protector, and were beginning to experience the same process of assimilation that had in previous generations been the fate of Bokhara and Western Turkestan. A sudden conflagration in which Russia became involved in Europe, together with the rise to power of a prince of exceptional ambition and capacity, gave the Mongols an opportunity of striking for complete independence, of which they were not slow to take advantage. The advance of a Russian army of 20,000 men was checked near Urga for want of supplies from the north. With an Austro-German army threatening Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Russian government recalled the greater part of their Eastern forces, leaving the Mongolian expedition to extricate itself as best it could. It might still have proved equal to the strain but for a Mussulman rising, which, after long smouldering, now broke into flame in the conquered Khanates eastward of the Caspian. The revolt spread with the rapidity of a prairie fire from Khiva to Tashkend, paralysing any efforts that might have been made to relieve the army destined for Mongolia. A raid of many thousands of Tartars who cut the railway at Irkutsk turned the check into a retreat. The first sign of wavering brought against the Russians every man who possessed a pony and a rifle from the Great Wall of China to the Altai mountains. Under this pressure the retreat became a rout, and the rout a slaughter. Within a year Mongolia became the most powerful of the Central Asian States, and with the guns and equipment of the annihilated Russian army as a nucleus, the Mongol Napoleon set about building up a new empire extending from the shrunken frontiers of the Chinese Republic to the shores of the Caspian. Five years had sufficed to transform the political aspect of Central Asia. Russia, exhausted by a three years' struggle with her western neighbours, was powerless to stem the flood of Mongol conquest. For the moment the tide had apparently spent itself on the eastern border of Asiatic Turkey, and the mountain chain dividing Persia. There had been a lull for more than a year, during which the world wondered with no little apprehension what would happen next. Some thought that the Mongol prince who had inspired this recrudescence of the Tartar spirit might now be content to consolidate his empire. Others looked for a new movement still more stupendous, for there were not wanting many in Europe who trembled at the name of Ubacha Khan as their forefathers in bygone centuries had trembled at the names of Genghis Khan and Timur.

Little wonder, then, that Major Endicott was perturbed at the thought of two young Englishmen journeying to the fringe of the vast territory in the breasts of whose peoples were stirring aspirations after a greatness which their forefathers had enjoyed, and which was celebrated in stories handed down by long tradition, and in songs that were still sung at village festivals and country fairs.

Robert and Lawrence Appleton, aged nineteen and eighteen respectively, were the sons of the retired lieutenant-governor of an Indian presidency. The elder had just entered Sandhurst, the younger was on the point of competing for a scholarship at Oxford, when the sudden death of their father put a summary check upon their careers. He had enjoyed a good pension, but his investments having proved unfortunate, when his pension died with him they found themselves almost without means. The army for Robert, the Indian Civil Service for Lawrence, were now equally out of the question, and they saw themselves faced with no brighter prospects than clerkships or junior masterships presented, when a letter from their uncle Harry in Asia came like a ray of sunlight in the gloom.

Their uncle had been something of a rolling stone. He had left home when a mere youth, and for many years his family had wholly lost sight of him. Gossip said that he had made and lost several fortunes in remote parts of the globe before he finally "struck oil," literally as well as figuratively, in Mexico. One day he turned up unexpectedly at the headquarters of his brother, the lieutenant-governor, told him that he had "made his pile" and retired from business, and now wanted to amuse himself. Sir George did what he could for him, but Harry soon wearied of the mild excitements of Indian social life, had his fill of tiger shooting and pig-sticking, and looked about for some other means of employing his time.

Happening to learn that it was a difficult matter to get permission to cross the north-west frontier, with characteristic obstinacy he set his mind on overcoming official reluctance. It was a period of some restlessness among the frontier tribes; and the government of India, never very willing to grant permits to non-official travellers, however good their credentials, refused his application, although his brother's influence was employed in his behalf. This was enough for a man of Harry Appleton's adventurous temperament and independent spirit. Resolving to crack the nut himself, he suddenly left India, disappeared for many months, and then emerged, to the no small embarrassment of the Russians, on the border at Wakhan. He had slipped across the Persian frontier, and before the Russians were aware of his presence, was half-way to the Pamirs. Then he had disappeared for a time into Afghan territory, exploring districts in which it was believed that no other white man had ever set foot, and, much to the wonderment of his friends, coming out alive. When he was again heard of, he had entered British territory far up in the Chitral country, laden with shooting trophies in the shape of many heads of ibex and Ovis poli, the large long-horned sheep characteristic of the hill country. His intention was to return to civilisation by way of Gilgit and Kashmir, but he was held up for a time at Gilgit while telegrams passed between the local officials and the government at Simla. There had always been something a little ridiculous, perhaps, in the government's barring the Gilgit road against the use to which roads are commonly and suitably put--travel and trade. The government had only two courses open to them: to turn him back over the Pamirs under escort, or to allow him to pass. It was the latter alternative which they wisely adopted.

Pluming himself not a little on his victory over red tape, as he considered it, Harry Appleton returned to London and remained there for two or three years, interesting himself in all sorts of fantastic schemes which were alike in two respects: they cost much money, and they failed. His friends learnt by and by without surprise