Directly Jiand became aware of their arrival he realised that it would be simply waste of time to remain in the neighbourhood of Khwash. He had now not the slightest hope of capturing it, so withdrew, with all his forces, to the Sar-i-drokan valley, which, it will be remembered, was his Summer haunt. This valley lies parallel with the Kamalabad valley, but on the farther side of the Morpeish Hills, and is bounded on its Northern side by the Sar-i-drokan Range. It seemed now that there might be a good chance of fighting Jiand with real hope of success, and with the elimination of bluff, upon which it would no longer be of any use to rely. Could we but defeat him in a square and open fight our past failures would be amply avenged, and British prestige again in the ascendant. [Illustration: ON THE MARCH TOWARDS GUSHT AND THE MORPEISH HILLS.] So, with this object in view, messages were sent telling him to look to himself, for we were coming, not only to fight him, but to lift all his herds. Jiand replied with the defiant message that he was quite ready for us, and that he knew how to defend his herds, as well as his men, from all comers. The Hazaras were given a couple of days' rest after their long, rapid march, and we then set out. The combined force now consisted of the three hundred Hazaras, a squadron of cavalry, two mountain and two machine guns and some Rekis. The remnant of our original force and two machine guns were left in Khwash, under the command of Colonel Claridge. The British officers with me were Major Sanders (Brigade Major), Major Lang, Captain Moore-Lane, Lieutenant Bream of the Hazaras, Lieutenant English with the guns, and Captain Brownlow in command of the cavalry. We started on a scorching hot day, the 28th of July, with Jiand's herds in the valley of the Sar-i-drokan as objective. There were two ways of entering this valley, which is about seventy-five miles long, more or less closed at either end by a bottle-neck formation of hills, and protected along the whole length of its sides, as already described, by the precipitous Morpeish and Sar-i-drokan Ranges. We fully realised that the entry to this valley would, in all probability, be a tough proposition, as the entrances could be easily defended, and would therefore be hard to force. The North-Western gorge, one of the two by which the valley could be entered, was called the Dast-Kird, and was very narrow. Jiand could, therefore, easily hold us in this direction. For, in an attack upon it, cavalry would only be an incumbrance, and, owing to the perpendicular sides of the gorge, and to the curious convexities of the hill-sides which obscured the view from below, the guns would fail in their proper sphere of usefulness. Yet it would be necessary to enter the valley by that gorge, or by the alternative one at the South-Eastern end, and close to a place called Gusht. But this second gorge was almost as difficult of access, if defended, as that of the Dast-Kird.