Talking thus, Mr. Appleton interested and amused the boys for an hour or two until it was time to turn in. The night was cold; but snuggled under thick blankets they slept like tops, and did not waken until the khansaman entered with water for their morning tub. At breakfast Mr. Appleton announced that his first business for the day was the holding of a durbar to enquire into the scuffle of the night before. "My discipline is as easy as possible," he said; "there are few rules, but I see that they are obeyed. The men represent some of the most unruly tribes of the frontier, but they know I mean what I say, and on the whole I’ve had very little trouble with them. Of course they get good pay; that’s the first condition of good work and contentment." "The second is good holidays," said Lawrence with a smile. "Ah, you’ve just left school!" said his uncle. "But the men haven’t anything to complain of on that score. They get holidays all the winter. We stop work for four or five months. What with snowstorms and the river frozen hard we could scarcely exist here in the winter months, so the men go off to their homes and no doubt play the heavy swell among their people, and I betake myself to Bokhara, or pay a round of visits among my Chinese friends, or go on a hunting trip, returning in the spring. But there’s the bugle; come and see me in my part of unpaid magistrate. Then I’ll take you over the place." On leaving the house, the boys saw a number of men filing through the gate between two ranks of tall bearded Sikhs armed with rifles. Those who came first were of the Mongolian type, with broad, flat, yellowish faces, wide noses and narrow eyes. What little clothing they wore was ragged and stained a deep indigo blue. These men, numbering about eighty, formed a group on the left-hand side. After them entered more than a score of swarthy black-haired fellows of more symmetrical shape and more powerful physique, their features more sharply cut, some of them having almost a Jewish cast of countenance. Their garments were marked with streaks and stains of yellowish-green. Mr. Appleton explained that they were for the most part Pathans from the Afghan border; but they included also several Punjabis, a couple of Baluchis, three or four Chitralis, and a sprinkling of men of Hunza and Nagar. They formed up on the right-hand side. At the door of an outhouse on the same side stood a very fat man whom the boys easily recognized as the Bengali storekeeper. His podgy olive cheeks were almost concealed by a bushy growth of black hair, and the loose white garment he wore, encircled with a sash of brilliant red, emphasised the vast unwieldiness of his bulk.