It was with this little force that Colonel Kelly started on his venturesome journey to succour the Chitral garrison, to restore British prestige, to steady the frontier, to keep those who were wavering from flooding over to the opposite side, and to give heart to those who still trusted and looked to the British. And it may be well here to explain, for the benefit of those not acquainted with our Indian Army, who the men were whom Colonel Kelly was now taking with him on this march. The Pioneer regiment, of which he was taking a wing, is composed of Sikhs from the Punjab. The regiment is organised and equipped for the special purpose of making roads and doing light pioneer work in advance of the army. It is drilled, and on service fights as an ordinary infantry battalion, but it can be used as well for the important work of road-making and construction of out-posts as for ordinary fighting purposes. The men were then armed with Martini-Henry rifles, and carried in addition, each man, a pickaxe, a shovel, or some other tool required for pioneer purposes. Colonel Kelly's force, to save transport, which was very difficult to obtain, travelled without tents. Each sepoy was allowed fifteen pounds of baggage, and he carried a greatcoat and eighty rounds of ammunition, and wore a short "poshtin" (sheepskin coat). The guns of the Kashmir Mountain Battery were 7-pounders of a rather antiquated pattern. The officers and men of the battery belonged to the army of the Maharajah of Kashmir, and for the last few years had been drilled under the supervision of British officers. [Illustration: SEPOY, 32ND PIONEERS.] At Gupis (sixty-five miles from Gilgit), where there is a small masonry fort, built in the previous year by Kashmir troops under the supervision of Captain Townshend as an advanced post in the direction of Chitral, Lieutenant Stewart, Royal Artillery, joined Colonel Kelly, to be with the two guns brought from Gilgit. Five marches further on at Ghizr a small detachment of sixty Kashmir Infantry under Lieutenant Gough, forty Kashmir Sappers and Miners under the supervision of Lieutenant Oldham, R.E., and 100 levies from Hunza-Nagar, were stationed.