"
"I'll give the message if I catch him," I said, "and for the sake of
your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't
try to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of
the 'Backwoodsman.' There's a real one knocking about here, and it
might lead to trouble."
"Thank you," said he, simply; "and when will the swine be gone? I
can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of
the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give
him a jump."
"What did he do to his father's widow, then?"
"Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she
hung from a beam. I found that out myself, and I'm the only man
that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for it.
They'll try to poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I
went on the loot there. But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction
my message?"
He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard,
more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers
and bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I
had never met any of the caste before.
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