" Lewis broke the envelope and read:
DEAR MR. HAYSTOUN,
When I was thinking over our conversation last night, chance put a piece
of information in my way which you may think fit to use. You know that
I am more intimate than most people with the hill tribes. Well, let
this be the guarantee of my news, but do not ask how I got it, for I
cannot betray friends. Some of these, the Bada-Mawidi to wit, are
meditating mischief. The Forza camp, which I think you have visited--a
place some twenty miles off--is too near those villages to be safe. So
to-morrow at latest they have planned to make a general attack upon it,
and, unless the garrison were prepared, I should fear for the result,
for they are the most cunning scoundrels in the world. What puzzles me
is how they have ever screwed up the courage for such a move, for lately
they were very much in fear of the Government. It appears as if they
looked for backing from over the frontier. You will say that this
proves your theory; but to me it merely seems as if some maniac of the
Gromchevtsky type had got among them. In any case I wish something
could be done. My duties take me away at once, and in a very different
direction, but perhaps you could find some means of putting the camp on
their guard. I should be sorry to hear of a tragedy; also I should be
sorry to see the Bada-Mawidi get into trouble.
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