“Love you!” they exclaimed in unison, indignantly, too, since the question was an imputation of the fact.

“Would you be lonesome if I took the Big Trek?” whimsically.

“Father!”

“Dad!”

They pressed about him, as vines about an oak.

“Hang it, I swear that this shall be the last hunt.  I’m rich.  We’ll get rid of all these brutes and spend the rest of the years seeing the show places.  I’m a bit tired myself of jungle fodder.  We’ll go to Paris, and Berlin, and Rome, and Vienna.  And you, Kit, shall go and tell Rodin that you’ve inherited the spirit of Gerome.  And you, Winnie, shall make a stab at grand opera.”

Winnie gurgled her delight, but her sister searched her father’s eyes.  She did not quite like the way he said those words.  His voice lacked its usual heartiness and spontaneity.

“Where did you get this medal, father?” she asked.

[Illustration:  Where did you get this medal?]

“That’s what I started out to tell you.”

“Were you afraid we might wish to wear it or have it made over?” laughed Winnie, who never went below the surface of things.

“No.  The truth is, I had almost forgotten it.  But the preparations for India recalled it to mind.  It represents a royal title conferred on me by the king of Allaha.  You have never been to India, Kit.  Allaha is the name we hunters give that border kingdom.  Some day England will gobble it up; only waiting for a good excuse.”

“What big thing did you do?” demanded Kathlyn, her eyes still filled with scrutiny.

“What makes you think it was big?” jestingly.

“Because,” she answered seriously, “you never do anything but big things.  As the lion is among beasts, you are among men.”

“Good lord!” The colonel reached embarrassedly for his pipe, lighted it, puffed a few minutes, then laid it down.  “India is full of strange tongues and strange kingdoms and principalities.  Most of them are dominated by the British Raj, some are only protected, while others do about as they please.  This state”—­touching the order—­“does about as it did since the days of the first white rover who touched the shores of Hind.  It is small, but that signifies nothing; for you can brew a mighty poison in a small pot.  Well, I happened to save the old king’s life.”

“I knew it would be something like that,” said Kathlyn.  “Go on.  Tell it all.”

The colonel had recourse to his pipe again.  He smoked on till the coal was dead.  The girls waited patiently.  They knew that his silence meant that he was only marshaling the events in their chronological order.