Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/37



was at Baramula, which is the beginning of the real Kashmir, that Edith Rand saw the watcher at the gate. At least so she christened him to herself.

The girl and her aunt, Catherine Rand, had been sent to the hills by Arthur Rand at the first contact with the lifeless heat of Calcutta. A Southerner by birth and an easy-going gentleman of the old school, he could not permit the women to face the climate of southern India which was like a fever breath compared with the heat of Louisville in midsummer.

His florid face had been almost purple when he kissed Edith good-by on the platform beside the carriage of the Punjabi Mail. Edith had not wanted to leave him. She knew that he was not well—this knowledge had made her determined to come with him to India.

Moreover Edith fancied that the business venture that brought them to India had not been going well. Letters from home had hinted at a stock market slump and she knew that her father had invested heavily.

But the Southerner, reluctant to worry his daughter or his sister, had smiled and said that he would join them within a few days in Kashmir. He had handed Catherine Rand her inseparable traveling companion, a pail of assorted medicines dear to her heart, wrapped in a black cloth, and waved good-by.