"Your Anatolians may stray too far," he said. "That will not my Kurds do. Come now, let us make our plans. We must beat these hills as we beat for bear in Kurdistan. See, here and there below us are clear spaces in the scrub. Into the scrub between them I will send my own men; them I can trust to let nothing pass, not a rabbit nor a stoat nor any small creeping thing; they are not plainsmen, blind and deaf. Your Anatolians shall move six paces apart towards the spot where my mountaineers are posted: even they, surely, cannot let anything through so small a mesh. You will form them up in a crescent line, the horns pointing to where my men lurk in the scrub. So shall we beat a large circle, and if our quarry is not started there, we will go on and do likewise farther afield."
They flung away the ends of their cigarettes, rose to their feet, and blew their whistles. From various directions the men hurried back, the Anatolians lining up on one side of the open space, the Kurds on the other. When the ranks were formed and numbered off, a Kurdish sergeant called out:
"There is a man short. Where is Yusuf?"
The men looked up and down the line, as if seeking their missing comrade; then one of them said:
"I saw him go down to fill his bottle."
The sergeant blew his whistle, and took a few paces in the direction of the stream. A few minutes passed. The absentee did not appear. The sergeant reported his absence to Abdi.
"Take a couple of men and look for him," said the Kurd, twirling his moustache.
The three men went off and disappeared over the brow of the hill. Presently there were shouts from below, and one of the men came back at a run, saluted his officer, and cried excitedly:
"We have found Yusuf, effendim, lying on his back, with his hands and feet tied with his own straps, and his cap thrust between his teeth."
Abdi scowled, and would not meet the Anatolian captain's eye. In another moment the missing man appeared over the crest, led between the sergeant and his comrade.