He had a knack also of getting into tight places and extricating
himself therefrom with amazing agility; which knack served to procure
for him the admiration of his friends and the respect of his enemies. It
was his first Frontier campaign, but it was not apparently destined to
be his last, for he bore a charmed life. And he went his way with a
cheery recklessness that seemed its own security.
On the present occasion he had planted himself, with a serene assumption
of authority, at the head of a handful of Goorkhas who had been pressed
forward too far by an over-zealous officer in the darkness, and had lost
their leader in consequence.
Derrick had stumbled on the group and had forthwith taken upon himself
to direct them to a position which, with a good deal of astuteness, he
had marked out in his own mind earlier in the day as a desirable
acquisition.
There had been a hand-to-hand scuffle in the darkness, and then the
tribesmen had fallen back, believing themselves overwhelmed by superior
numbers.
Derrick and his Goorkhas had promptly taken possession of the rocky
eminence which was the object of their desire, and now prepared, with
commendable determination, to maintain themselves at the post thus
captured; an impossible feat in consideration of the paucity of their
numbers, which fact a wily enemy had already begun to suspect.
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