Moreover, the order must be slightly changed, if we are to end with the proper “snap,” the final sting of surprise and admiration given by the point of the story; the point must be prepared for.  The purpose of the original is equally well served by the explanation at the end, but we must never forget that the place for the climax, or effective point in a story told, is the last thing said.  That is what makes a story “go off” well.

Imagining vividly the situation suggested, and keeping the logical sequence of facts in mind, shall we not find the story telling itself to boys and girls in somewhat this form?

THE RED THREAD OF COURAGE[1]

[Footnote 1:  See also The Red Thread of Honour, by Sir Francis Doyle, in Lyra Heroica.]

This story which I am going to tell you is a true one.  It happened while the English troops in India were fighting against some of the native tribes.  The natives who were making trouble were people from the hill-country, called Hillsmen, and they were strong enemies.  The English knew very little about them, except their courage, but they had noticed one peculiar custom, after certain battles,—­the Hillsmen had a way of marking the bodies of their greatest chiefs who were killed in battle by binding a red thread about the wrist; this was the highest tribute they could pay a hero.  The English, however, found the common men of them quite enough to handle, for they had proved themselves good fighters and clever at ambushes.

One day, a small body of the English had marched a long way into the hill country, after the enemy, and in the afternoon they found themselves in a part of the country strange even to the guides.  The men moved forward very slowly and cautiously, for fear of an ambush.  The trail led into a narrow valley with very steep, high, rocky sides, topped with woods in which the enemy might easily hide.

Here the soldiers were ordered to advance more quickly, though with caution, to get out of the dangerous place.

After a little they came suddenly to a place where the passage was divided in two by a big three-cornered boulder which seemed to rise from the midst of the valley.  The main line of men kept to the right; to save crowding the path, a sergeant and eleven men took the left, meaning to go round the rock and meet the rest beyond it.

They had been in the path only a few minutes when they saw that the rock was not a single boulder at all, but an arm of the left wall of the valley, and that they were marching into a deep ravine with no outlet except the way they came.  Both sides were sheer rock, almost perpendicular, with thick trees at the top; in front of them the ground rose in a steep hill, bare of woods.  As they looked up, they saw that the top was barricaded by the trunks of trees, and guarded by a strong body of Hillsmen.  As the English hesitated, looking at this, a shower of spears fell from the wood’s edge, aimed by hidden foes.  The place was a death trap.