I left my horse, and climbed a rock, and looked for half a minute.  Then I knew what to do; and I wonder whether ever in the world was such a running fight before.  I had only lost one man; and it was quite another matter driving the Kurds’ horses up the valley in the direction they wished to take, to attempting to drive them elsewhere.  Being mounted ourselves, we could keep ahead of the retreating Kurds very easily, so we adopted the same tactics again and again and again.

First we drove the horses helter-skelter up the valley a mile or two.  Then we halted, and hid our own horses, and took cover behind the rocks to wait for the Kurds; and as they came, making a good running fight of it, dodging hither and thither behind the boulders to try to pick off Ranjoor Singh’s men, we would open fire on their rear unexpectedly, thus throwing them into confusion again,—­and again,—­and again.

We opened fire always at too great distance to do much material damage, I thinking it more important to preserve my own men’s lives and so to continue able to demoralize the Kurds, and afterward Ranjoor Singh commended me for that.  But I was also acutely aware of the risk that our bullets might go past the Kurds and kill our own Sikhs.  I am not at all sure some accidents of that nature did not happen.

So when we had fired at the Kurds enough to make them face about and so expose their rear to Ranjoor Singh, we would get to horse again and send the Kurdish horses galloping up the pass in front of us.  Finally, we lost sight of most of the Kurdish horses, led on.  I slept on the march.  Nay, I had no eyes for scenery just then!

After that the unexpected, amazing, happened as it so often does in war.  We were at the mercy of any handful who cared to waylay us, for the hillsides shut us in, and there was cover enough among the boulders to have hidden a great army.  It was true we had worsted the Wassmuss men utterly; I think we slew at least half of them, and doubtless that, and the loss of their horses, must have taken much heart out of the rest.  But we expected at least to be attacked by friends of the men we had worsted—­by mountain cutthroats, thieves, and plunderers, any fifty of whom could have made our march impossible by sniping us from the flanks.

But nothing happened, and nobody attacked us.  As we marched our spirit grew.  We began to laugh and make jokes about the enemy hunting for lost horses and letting us go free.  For two days we rode, and camped, and slept a little, and rode on unmolested, climbing ever forward to where we could see the peaks that our friendly chief assured us were in Persia.  For miles and miles and everlasting miles it seemed the passes all led upward; but there came a noon at last when we were able to feel, and even see—­when at least we knew in our hearts that the uphill work was over.  We could see other ranges, running in other directions, and mountains with tree-draped sides.  But chiefly it was our hearts that told us we were really in sight of Persia at last.