The steamer's destination was telegraphed
from waterwheel to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and
put to according. If an earth were overlooked, it meant some
dispute as to the ownership of the land, and then and there the
Hunt checked and settled it in this wise: The Governor and the
Inspector side by side, but the latter half a horse's length to
the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in front; the
villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack, who
quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left.
Twenty minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case,
for, as the Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at
the truth in a hunting-field a heap quicker than in your
lawcourts."
"But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.
"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're
running a wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my
decisions yet."
The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the
Governor's favour.
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