As he spoke a Kurd stepped out from between the trees, and we could see that he had tied his horse to a branch in the gloom behind him.  He had the long sleeves reaching nearly to the ground peculiar to his race, and the unmistakable sheeny nose and cruel lips.  From the rifle that he carried cavalierly over his shoulder hung a woman’s undergarment, with a dark stain on it that looked suspiciously like blood.  My horse whinnied then, and his beast answered.  At that he brought his rifle to the “ready” and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“I’m judge, jury, witness, prosecutor and executioner!” Fred whispered.  “That man’s dose is death, and he dies unshriven!”

Then he fired, and Fred could not miss at that range if he tried.  The Kurd clapped a hand to his throat and fell backward, and one of our Armenians ran before we could stop him to seize the tied horse, and any other plunder.  One of the things he brought back with him, besides the horse and rifle and ammunition belt, was a woman’s finger with the ring not yet removed.  He said he found it in the cartridge pouch.

In proof that organized defense was the last thing they reckoned on, nine more Kurds came galloping down the track pell-mell toward the place where they had heard the solitary rifle-shot, doubtless supposing their own man had come upon the quarry.  We fired too fast, for the Armenians were not drilled men, but we dropped two horses and five Kurds, and the remaining four fled, with the riderless animals stampeding in their wake.

“What next?"’ said I, as Fred wiped out his rifle-barrel.

“They’ll return in greater force.  We’d better change ground.  D’you notice how this rock is covered by that other one a quarter of a mile to the right?  Higher ground, too, and the last place they’ll look—­come on!”

The man with the water-can spilled it all, for the sake of his medley of possessions, and I had to send him all the way back for more.  But we took up our new stand at last with the horses well hidden and enough to drink to last the day out, and then had to wait half an hour before any Kurds came back to the attack.

They came on the second time with infinite precaution, lurking among the trees on the outskirts of the clearing and firing several random shots at our old position in the hope of drawing our fire.  Finally, they emerged from the forest thirty strong and rushed our supposed hiding-place at full gallop.

They were not even out of pistol range.  Fred used the Mauser rifle taken from the dead Kurd, and then we both emptied our pistols at the fools, the Armenians meanwhile keeping up a savage independent fire so ragged and rapid that it might have been the battle of Waterloo.

The Kurds never knew whether or not we were another party or the first one.  They never discovered whether our former post was deserted or not.  We never knew how many of them we hit, for after about a dozen had tumbled out of the saddle the remainder galloped for their lives.  For minutes afterward we heard them crashing and pounding away in the distance to find their friends.