“Tom’s a good fellow, but once a day—.  A hundred things might happen.  I’d better speak to Tom Tripe about those three bums—­he’ll shift them!”

“Don’t, Dick!  I tell you they keep others away.  Look, here comes Chamu with the chota hazri.”

Clad in an enormous turban and clean white linen from head to foot, a stout Hindu appeared, superintending a tall meek underling who carried the customary “little breakfast” of the country—­fruit, biscuits and the inevitable tea that haunts all British byways.  As soon as the underling had spread a cloth and arranged the cups and plates Chamu nudged him into the background and stood to receive praise undivided.  The salaams done with and his own dismissal achieved with proper dignity, Chamu drove the hamal away in front of him, and cuffed him the minute they were out of sight.  There was a noise of repeated blows from around the corner.

“A big dog might serve better after all,” mused Tess.  “Chamu beats the servants, and takes commissions, even from the beggars.”

“How do you know?”

“They told me.”

“Um, Bing and Ping would better keep away.  There’s no obligation to camp here.”

“Only, if we fired Chamu I suppose the maharajah would be offended.  He made such a great point of sending us a faithful servant.”

“True.  Gungadhura Singh is a suspicious rajah.  He suspects me anyway.  I screwed better terms out of him than the miller got from Bob White, and now whenever he sees me off the job he suspects me of chicanery.  If we fired Chamu he’d think I’d found the gold and was trying to hide it.  Say, if I don’t find gold in his blamed hills eventually—!”

“You’ll find it, Dick.  You never failed at anything you really set your heart on.  With your experience—­”

“Experience doesn’t count for much,” he answered, blowing at his tea to cool it.  “It’s not like coal or manganese.  Gold is where you find it.  There are no rules.”

“Finding it’s your trade.  Go ahead.”

“I’m not afraid of that.  What eats me,” he said, standing up and looking down at her, “is what I’ve heard about their passion for revenge.  Every one has the same story.  If you disappoint them, gee whiz, look out!  Poisoning your wife’s a sample of what they’ll do.  It’s crossed my mind a score of times, little girl, that you ought to go back to the States and wait there till I’m through—­”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

“Isn’t that just like a man!”

“All the same—­”

“Go in, Dick, and get dressed, or the sun will be too high before you get the gang started.”

She took his arm and they went into the house together.  Twenty minutes later he rode away on his pony, looking if possible even more of an athlete than in his pajamas, for there was an added suggestion of accomplishment in the rolled-up sleeves and scarred boots laced to the knee.  Their leave-taking was a purely American episode, mixed of comradeship, affection and just plain foolishness, witnessed by more wondering, patient Indian eyes than they suspected.  Every move that either of them made was always watched.