Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/43

once lived and, living, had been as he had been, would remain—like dregs; as salt as pain. Also, Dost Ali was a superstitious man. He could imagine the hadji's ghost, after the death of the body, squatting on a mountain top like a lean, red-necked vulture, looking down at the Raven's Station with flat, gray, indifferent eyes—perhaps smiling, perhaps still croaking about Peace.

Should he rob him? And what was there to rob? A muslin shirt, a rough khilat, a sheepskin coat, a pair of grass sandals—not enough to satisfy the greed of the meanest dancing girl from the south.

"Ho! man of great feet and small head!" he began again, then was silent. For the other had dropped on his knees.

"May the Lamp of Peace clear my path from hearth-stone to byre," he was praying, oblivious of man-made passion and man-made words; and the Red Chief trembled with rage. What—by the blood of God!—what was the use of a talker when there were no listeners; when nobody heard except the lank pines and the cursed, blinking, waddling sheep, and—ahi!—the hadji's little son?

There he stood, looking on with wondering eyes, munching a wheaten cake with the solemn satisfaction of childhood; strong, good-looking with his father's hawklike profile and deep-set eyes.

The hadji was still droning his prayer of peace, and the Red Chief laughed. The answer? The answer to the riddle of his hatred? He had it. It lay in the strength of his arms, the clouting strength of his will. It was the hills way—his own way.

He would pour the black brewage of fear down this stranger's throat till it choked him and he squealed for