The journalist Kipling meets Peachy Carnehan, a rough soldier but a fellow-freemason, on a train, and Peachy and his friend Danny Dravot later tell the writer about their plan to conquer...

The journalist Kipling meets Peachy Carnehan, a rough soldier but a fellow-freemason, on a train, and Peachy and his friend Danny Dravot later tell the writer about their plan to conquer Kafiristan, to the north of British India. Kipling gives them a gold watch chain, with the sign of Alexander the Great on it. Peachy and Danny have many adventures getting to Kafiristan. Once there, Danny is treated as a god after an arrow fails to wound him and the mark of Alexander is found around his neck. Peachy wants to take the country's treasure and get out, but Danny prefers to stay and play at being a god-king. In the end, the Kafiris discover that Danny and Peachy are only flesh and blood. Three years after their enterprise began, Peachy, now a ragged man with leprosy, makes his way back to Kipling and tells him the story of their adventures. The Man Who Would Be King was shot on location in northern India.