the wind.  The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the two walked as they descended the mountains, were unlovely and unclean, wives of many husbands, and afflicted with goitre.  The men were woodcutters when they were not farmers — meek, and of an incredible simplicity.  But that suitable discourse might not fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and overtaken upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who paid for his food in ointments good for goitre and counsels that restore peace between men and women.  He seemed to know these hills as well as he knew the hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of the land towards Ladakh and Tibet.  He said they could return to the Plains at any moment.  Meantime, for such as loved mountains, yonder road might amuse.  This was not all revealed in a breath, but at evening encounters on the stone threshing-floors, when, patients disposed of, the doctor would smoke and the lama snuff, while Kim watched the wee cows grazing on the housetops, or threw his soul after his eyes across the deep blue gulfs between range and range.  And there were talks apart in the dark woods, when the doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as budding physician, must accompany him.

‘You see, Mister O’Hara, I do not know what the deuce-an’ all I shall do when I find our sporting friends; but if you will kindly keep within sight of my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for cadastral survey, I shall feel much better.’

Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks.  ’This is not my country, hakim.  Easier, I think, to find one louse in a bear-skin.’

’Oah, thatt is my strong points.  There is no hurry for Hurree.  They were at Leh not so long ago.  They said they had come down from the Karakorum with their heads and horns and all.  I am onlee afraid they will have sent back all their letters and compromising things from Leh into Russian territoree.  Of course they will walk away as far to the East as possible — just to show that they were never among the Western States.  You do not know the Hills?’ He scratched with a twig on the earth.  ’Look!  They should have come in by Srinagar or Abbottabad.  Thatt is their short road — down the river by Bunji and Astor.  But they have made mischief in the West.  So’ — he drew a furrow from left to right — ’they march and they march away East to Leh (ah! it is cold there), and down the Indus to Hanle (I know that road), and then down, you see, to Bushahr and Chini valley.  That is ascertained by process of elimination, and also by asking questions from people that I cure so well.  Our friends have been a long time playing about and producing impressions.  So they are well known from far off.  You will see me catch them somewhere in Chini valley.  Please keep your eye on the umbrella.’

It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the valleys and round the mountain sides, and in due time the lama and Kim, who steered by compass, would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders at eventide.  ‘We came by such and such a way!’ The lama would throw a careless finger backward at the ridges, and the umbrella would expend itself in compliments.