There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile away , with a young banyan tree behind -- a look-out , as it were , above some new-ploughed levels ; and his eyelids , bathed in soft air , grew heavy as he neared it . The ground was good clean dust -- no new herbage that , living , is half-way to death already , but the hopeful dust that holds the seeds of all life . He felt it between his toes , patted it with his palms , and joint by joint , sighing luxuriously , laid him down full length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned cart . And Mother Earth was as faithful as the Sahiba . She breathed through him to restore the poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off from her good currents . His head lay powerless upon her breast , and his opened hands surrendered to her strength . The many-rooted tree above him , and even the dead manhandled wood beside , knew what he sought , as he himself did not know . Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep . Towards evening , when the dust of returning kine made all the horizons smoke , came the lama and Mahbub Ali , both afoot , walking cautiously , for the house had told them where he had gone . ` Allah ! What a fool 's trick to play in open country ! ' muttered the horse-dealer . ` He could be shot a hundred times -- but this is not the Border . ' ` And , ' said the lama , repeating a many-times-told tale , ` never was such a chela . Temperate , kindly , wise , of ungrudging disposition , a merry heart upon the road , never forgetting , learned , truthful , courteous . Great is his reward ! ' ' I know the boy -- as I have said . ' ` And he was all those things ? ' ` Some of them -- but I have not yet found a Red Hat 's charm for making him overly truthful . He has certainly been well nursed . '
` The Sahiba is a heart of gold , ' said the XXXXX earnestly .
Mother Red bullock-cart chela evening horse-dealer hour kine lama look-out