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UNDER ALA DAGH 261
noon, between times the heaven-sent stragglers ;
not
a dwelling within miles ; and on either hand a fastness
of mountains traversed onlj^ by goat - tracks.
Here, indeed, lawless men might pick their victims,
have matters their own way in the doing, and incur
little risk.
As Ighsan looked at the slope down which the
Kurds had come, he seemed to be living the scene
over again. He grew excited and fell to skirmishing,
and then drawing his revolver aimed at more
than eleven imaginary Kurds. By natural sequence
he next remembered his actual scars : here were received
some of those old battle marks he had shown
with pride on Topuz Dagh, and, returning now to the
mood of that afternoon, he displayed them all once
more.
By this time the clouds had lifted and the parallel
ranges of Ala Dagh and Bulgar Dagh were unveiled
to view. Between them lay a deep, bare, brown
valley, four or five miles in width, going away into
the south indefinitely, its bottom heaving in treeless
undulations, and the track winding amongst them.
Overhead were great breadths of blue sky, and along
the faces of the nearer mountains floated stray white
clouds with peaks showing above. Here and there
were expanses of sunlight, here and there of shadow.
The valley must have been in sight for its whole
length, for at the farther end appeared an open gap
backed by a space of sapphire blue sky. Along the
eastern side of this gorge stretched the splintered
range of Ala Dagh, a row of peaks, ten thousand
feet in height, falling to the valley bottom in a precipitous,
tremendous scarp. On the western side the
nearer ridges of Bulgar Dagh were less bold and of
less elevation, thoucrh covered with snow ; but in the
distance the height increased till this range matched
w^ell its rival in boldness and stature. Ala Dagh
means " Speckled Mountains," and the speckling was
in red for rock, and white for snow wherever snow
could lie.