It has been before said that the Boondi State has no great love for Sahibs. The state of the road proves it. “This,” said Ram Baksh, tapping the wheel to see whether the last plunge had smashed a spoke, “is a very good road. You wait till you see what is ahead.” And the funeral staggered on--over irrigation cuts, through buffalo wallows, and dried pools stamped with the hundred feet of kine (this by the way is the most cruel road of all), up rough banks where the rock ledges peered out of the dust, down step-cut dips ornamented with large stones, and along two-feet deep ruts of the rains, where the tonga went slantwise even to the verge of upsetting. It was a royal road--a native road--a Raj road of the roughest, and, through all its jolts and bangs and bumps and dips and heaves, the eye of Ram Baksh rolled in its blood-shot socket, seeking for the “big horses” he had so rashly sent into the wilderness. The ponies that had done the last twenty miles into Deoli were nearly used up, and did their best to lie down in the dry beds of nullahs. [_Nota bene._--There was an unbridged nullah every five minutes, for the set of the country was towards the Mej river. In the rains it must be utterly impassable.] A man came by on horseback, his servant walking before with platter and meal bag. “Have you seen any horses hereabouts?” cried Ram Baksh. “Horses! horses! What the Devil have I to do with your horses? D’you think I’ve stolen them?” Now this was decidedly a strange answer, and showed the rudeness of the land. An old woman under a tree cried out in a strange tongue and ran away. It was a dream-like experience, this hunting for horses on a “blasted heath” with neither house nor hut nor shed in sight. “If we keep to the road long enough we must find them. Look at the road! This Raj ought to be smitten with bullets.” Ram Baksh had been pitched forward nearly on to the off-pony’s rump, and was in a very bad temper indeed. The funeral found a house--a house walled with thorns--and near by were the two big horses, thirteen-two if an inch, and harnessed quite regardless of expense.