First published in Harper's Magazine on 23 August 1890 and in Macmillan's Magazine in the following month; appeared with The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories in 1890, was collected in Mine Own People and Life's Handicap in 1891.

The 'Soldiers Three' are out on a hillside in the Himalayas. A deserter from an Indian regiment has been firing on his former comrades and on the 'Ould Regiment', and Ortheris has sworn to shoot him.