Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/183

Rh horses. At certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from the earth. He has gone back to the road again for a while. The madrissah wearied him. I knew it would. Another time, I will take him upon the road myself. Do not be troubled, Creighton Sahib. I know the boy. It is as though a polo-pony, breaking loose, ran out to learn the game alone.'

'Then he is not dead, think you?'

'Fever might kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A monkey does not fall among trees.'

Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion ranged alongside the Colonel.

'It is as I had thought,' said the horse-dealer. 'He has come through Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me, having learned in the bazar that I was here.'

'Read,' said the Colonel, with a sigh of relief. It was absurd that a man of his position should take an interest in a little country-bred vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the train, and often in the past few months had caught himself thinking of queer, silent, self-possessed Kim. His evasion, of course, was the height of insolence, but it argued unlimited resource and nerve.

Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the cramped little course, where none could come near them unseen.

'"The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World'"

'What is this?'

'A name we give him in Lahore city. "The Friend of all the World takes leave to go to his own place. He will come back upon the appointed day. Let the box and the bedding-roll be sent for; and