“I. G.’s don’t foot it unless they’re obliged to. No have gee-gee how can move? I’ll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across Scotland to Applecross to hand ’em over to a horse-depot there. It was snowing cruel, and we didn’t know the country overmuch. You remember the 30th—the old East Lancashire—at Mian Mir? “Their Guard Battalion had been ‘heefing’ round those parts for six months. We thought they’d be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden, their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol.” “Confound him,” said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. “I entertained one of ’em—in a red worsted comforter—under Bean Derig. He said he was a crofter. ‘Gave him a drink too.” “I don’t mind admitting,” said the Boy, “that, what with the cold and the remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt.” “Was he allowed to do that?” I said. “There is no peace in a Military Area. If we’d beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we’d have been entitled to a day’s pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn’t. He cut off fifty of ours, held ’em as prisoners for the regulation three days, and then sent in his bill—three days’ pay for each man taken. Fifty men at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden & Co. They crowed over us horrid.” “Couldn’t you have appealed to an umpire or—or something?” “We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I spent three days huntin’ ’em in the snow, but they went off on our remounts about twenty mile that night.” “Do you always do this sham-fight business?” I asked.