‘Whence comest thou?’ I asked.

‘From Thibet.’  He pointed across the hills and grinned.  That grin went straight to my heart.  Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it.  No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the gesture.  He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar.  It was the whooping of Namgay Doola.

‘You see now,’ said the King, ’why I would not kill him.  He is a bold man among my logs, but,’ and he shook his head like a schoolmaster, ’I know that before long there will be complaints of him in the court.  Let us return to the Palace and do justice.’  It was that King’s custom to judge his subjects every day between eleven and three o’clock.  I saw him decide equitably in weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little wife-stealing.  Then his brow clouded and he summoned me.

‘Again it is Namgay Doola,’ he said despairingly.  ’Not content with refusing revenue on his own part, he has bound half his village by an oath to the like treason.  Never before has such a thing befallen me!  Nor are my taxes heavy.’

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind his ear, advanced trembling.  He had been in the conspiracy, but had told everything and hoped for the King’s favour.

‘O King,’ said I, ’if it be the King’s will let this matter stand over till the morning.  Only the Gods can do right swiftly, and it may be that yonder villager has lied.’

’Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but since a guest asks let the matter remain.  Wilt thou speak harshly to this red-headed outlander?  He may listen to thee.’

I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life of me I could not keep my countenance.  Namgay Doola grinned persuasively, and began to tell me about a big brown bear in a poppy-field by the river.  Would I care to shoot it?  I spoke austerely on the sin of conspiracy, and the certainty of punishment.  Namgay Doola’s face clouded for a moment.  Shortly afterwards he withdrew from my tent, and I heard him singing to himself softly among the pines.  The words were unintelligible to me, but the tune, like his liquid insinuating speech, seemed the ghost of something strangely familiar.

’Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir
 To weeree ala gee.’

sang Namgay Doola again and again, and I racked my brain for that lost tune.  It was not till after dinner that I discovered some one had cut a square foot of velvet from the centre of my best camera-cloth.  This made me so angry that I wandered down the valley in the hope of meeting the big brown bear.  I could hear him grunting like a discontented pig in the poppy-field, and I waited shoulder deep in the dew-dripping Indian corn to catch him after his meal.  The moon was at full and drew out the rich scent of the tasselled crop.  Then I heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow, one of the little black