Hawk of the Hills | Page 5

Kurram.
Baber twisted his beard and gnawed the corner of his lip. He seemed
devoured by an inward fire of anger and suspicion which would not let
him rest.
"You will go forward from this point alone, sahib?"
Willoughby nodded, gathering up his reins.
"He will kill you!"
"I think not."
Willoughby knew very well that Baber Ali would never have thus
placed himself within Gordon's reach unless he placed full confidence
in the American's promise of safety.
"Then make the dog agree to a truce!" snarled Baber, his savage
arrogance submerging his grudging civility. "By Allah, this feud is a
thorn in the side of Afdal Khan--and of me!"
"We'll see." Willoughby nudged his mount with his heels and jogged

on down the gorge, not an impressive figure at all as he slumped
carelessly in his saddle, his cork helmet bobbing with each step of the
horse. Behind him the Pathans watched eagerly until he passed out of
sight around a bend of the canyon.
Willoughby's tranquillity was partly, though not altogether, assumed.
He was not afraid, nor was he excited. But he would have been more
than human had not the anticipation of meeting El Borak stirred his
imagination to a certain extent and roused speculations.
The name of El Borak was woven in the tales told in all the
caravanserais and bazaars from Teheran to Bombay. For three years
rumors had drifted down the Khyber of intrigues and grim battles
fought among the lonely hills, where a hard-eyed white man was
hewing out a place of power among the wild tribesmen.
The British had not cared to interfere until this latest stone cast by
Gordon into the pool of Afghan politics threatened to spread ripples
that might lap at the doors of foreign palaces. Hence Willoughby,
jogging down the winding Gorge of the Minaret. Queer sort of
renegade, Willoughby reflected. Most white men who went native were
despised by the people among whom they cast their lot. But even
Gordon's enemies respected him, and it did not seem to be on account
of his celebrated fighting ability alone. Gordon, Willoughby vaguely
understood, had grown up on the southwestern frontier of the United
States, and had a formidable reputation as a gun fanner before he ever
drifted East.
Willoughby had covered a mile from the mouth of the gorge before he
rounded a bend in the rocky wall and saw the Minaret looming up
before him--a tall, tapering spirelike crag, detached, except at the base,
from the canyon wall. No one was in sight. Willoughby tied his horse
in the shade of the cliff and walked toward the base of the Minaret
where he halted and stood gently fanning himself with his helmet, and
idly wondering how many rifles were aimed at him from vantage points
invisible to himself. Abruptly Gordon was before him.
It was a startling experience, even to a man whose nerves were under as

perfect control as Willoughby's. The Englishman indeed stopped
fanning himself and stood motionless, holding the helmet lifted. There
had been no sound, not even the crunch of rubble under a boot heel to
warn him. One instant the space before him was empty, the next it was
filled by a figure vibrant with dynamic life. Boulders strewn at the foot
of the wall offered plenty of cover for a stealthy advance, but the
miracle of that advance--to Willoughby, who had never fought Yaqui
Indians in their own country--was the silence with which Gordon had
accomplished it.
"You're Willoughby, of course." The Southern accent was faint, but
unmistakable.
Willoughby nodded, absorbed in his scrutiny of the man before him.
Gordon was not a large man, but he was remarkably compact, with a
squareness of shoulders and a thickness of chest that reflected unusual
strength and vitality. Willoughby noted the black butts of the heavy
pistols jutting from his hips, the knife hilt projecting from his right boot.
He sought the hard bronzed face in vain for marks of weakness or
degeneracy. There was a gleam in the black eyes such as Willoughby
had never before seen in any man of the so-called civilized races.
No, this man was no degenerate; his plunging into native feuds and
brawls indicated no retrogression. It was simply the response of a
primitive nature seeking its most natural environment. Willoughby felt
that the man before him must look exactly as an untamed,
precivilization Anglo-Saxon must have looked some ten thousand years
before.
"I'm Willoughby," he said. "Glad you found it convenient to meet me.
Shall we sit down in the shade?"
"No. There's no need of taking up that much time. Word came to me
that you were at Ghazrael, trying to get in touch with me. I sent you my
answer by a Tajik trader. You got