At that moment the path ran into a grove of tall bamboos cl.u.s.tered along the bank. The grove was of no great width, and they emerged from it to see a little camp pitched on a sand-bank beside the stream. A fire was burning, and a pot of rice simmering over the flame. Watching the rice, sat, or rather squatted, a couple of Shan boatmen, and their boat was moored to a tree at the water's edge.

"Hallo!" cried Jack, "these chaps have got a big boat here. Can't we get them to run us and our stuff up the river?"

"By George!" said Jim Dent, "there's something in that."

"Ask them, Me Dain," called Jack. "Tell them we'll pay them well if they'll carry us up the river."

The Burman ran forward at once and began to talk quickly to the big-hatted boatmen. In two moments everything was settled. The men were poling their boat back up the stream after selling a load of tobacco in a down-river village, and were glad to serve travellers who would pay them well. The baggage was stripped from the pony, and hastily swung into the empty boat.

"What shall we do with the pony?" said Jack.

"Turn him loose into the jungle," said Buck. "He's got heaps of sense, they all have. Before night he'll hit on some village, and then he'll soon find a master. A stray pony comes in very useful to anybody."

This was done. Me Dain led the pony a short distance from the river bank and loosed it, and gave it a cut with a switch. The little creature threw up its heels joyfully to find itself free, then cantered off among the trees, and they saw it no more.

By this time the Shans had swallowed their rice, and were ready to seize their poles. All sprang aboard, the Shans and Me Dain grasped the boating-poles, and the craft was soon being driven steadily up stream. For some time Jack watched the boatmen with deep interest.

They drove their craft along just as a punt is propelled in England.

Each man handled a long stout pole, and, where the water was shallow enough, he set the bottom of his pole in the gravelly bed and urged the boat forward. Where the water was too deep the craft was turned insh.o.r.e, and the polers thrust the ends of their staves against the bank or against tree trunks lining the water's edge. Jack saw that quite deep holes had been made in many of the trunks where boatman after boatman had gained the purchase which sent his craft spinning up stream.

"Well, Jim," said Jack, "this is a bit easier anyhow."

"It is," sighed Dent, wiping the streaming sweat from his brow. "I was pretty near caving in, and that's a fact."

"We'll drop the dacoits for a sure thing," said Buck. "They'll stop to hunt all about the place where they lose our trail, and then they'll follow up the pony for a dead cert."

"True for you, Buck," replied Jim Dent. "We left no marks at all to show them where we got into the boat."

They had embarked secretly by pushing the boat up to a big stone, and moving carefully in order to leave no trace.

"Where does the road turn off from the river bank, Me Dain?" asked Jack.

"We have pa.s.sed it already, sahib," replied the Burman. "It is solid jungle on both banks now, with no path at all The dacoits cannot follow except along the river itself."

"Then we've dropped 'em," said Jim Dent decisively. "We shall never see 'em again."

And Jim's words proved to be right. They had at last eluded the pursuit of the blood-thirsty little Kachins.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL.

For three days the strong arms of Me Dain and the two Shan boatmen drove the river boat up the stream, and every day's journey brought them nearer to the mountains where the rubies were found, and among whose recesses they believed that Jack's father was a close prisoner in the hands of men who coveted rubies above all things.

Jack said very little to his companions about the object of their journey, but his own thoughts were full of it at every waking moment.

Since he had discovered that U Saw, the Ruby King, had a steam yacht, and that it had returned and gone up river shortly before their own arrival, he had felt no doubt whatever in his own mind as to his father's fate. He knew that the great ruby expert was on that yacht a close captive, and that he had been carried by secret ways, through the jungle and over the hills, to the place where U Saw was all-powerful, and would do his utmost to wrest from Thomas Haydon the knowledge which the latter certainly possessed of a great ruby-mine.

Very good. They, too, would push into the Ruby King's country, and do their utmost to foil his plans and s.n.a.t.c.h his prisoner from his clutch. Hour after hour Jack thought over the situation, while his eye rested almost carelessly on the lovely scenes of hill-side and jungle, past which their boat was driven.

At the end of the first day they left the main current of the river, and poled eastwards by a network of creeks leading to the village from which their boatmen came. For the most part the water-way was very solitary. Here and there they pa.s.sed a village, but, as a rule, no life, save that of wild animals, was to be seen. Monkeys chattered in the trees over their heads, panthers and deer came down to the stream to drink, tigers roared in sullen fashion in the jungle, and once, a troop of wild elephants crossed a ford before them in stately line.

With the evening of the third day the boatmen reached their native village, and the travellers stepped ash.o.r.e. A new hut, built of reeds and cane, was set apart at once for their use, and, after supper, they talked over their future movements before turning in.

"How do we stand now as regards striking the course my father followed from Mogok?" asked Jack.

Jim Dent, who knew the country well, cross-examined Me Dain for a few moments.

"We ought to hit it to-morrow afternoon," he said. "We've come a long way on the right road by dropping on these boatmen. We're just handy to the foot-hills, and the Professor skirted 'em, according to what Me Dain says."

"Very well," said Jack. "Then we'll roll into our blankets, and be off by daybreak."

Jack was so eager to start on the real trail, and so excited by its nearness, that he slept but little. He was up an hour before the dawn, and had got the fire burning when his companions awoke. Buck sat up, and rubbed his eyes, and sniffed the smoke.

"Keen on a start, Jack?" he murmured.

"I am, Buck," replied the tall lad. "Haven't you told me a score of times how the news of travellers in a country runs with marvellous swiftness through the jungle, from village to village? Well, I want to be ahead of the news. It might make Saya Chone and U Saw suspicious.

They knew very well we were in Mandalay. I don't want them to learn too soon that we're at their very doors."

Jim Dent nodded. He, too, had wakened, and had been listening to Jack.

"Me Dain," said Jack, "go to the headman, and tell him we want a couple of good ponies to carry the packs once more. Bring them here for us to see, and then we'll pay the owners."

Within half an hour they had the pick of a score of capital little beasts. They looked them over carefully, chose the couple which seemed best suited to their needs, paid for them, and set to work to pack the traps on them. Within an hour after sunrise they were on the march.

For several miles they followed a well-worn road running due north from the village. This was to conceal their true line of march from the knowledge of the curious villagers. But when they were well away from the place, and safe from all prying eyes, they swung to the east and marched straight through open country for the foot-hills, plainly in view a score of miles away.

The sun was low and they had made a good day's journey, when Me Dain halted on a little ridge, overlooking a sloping green valley with a brook tinkling down its centre. Jack was beside him.

"There, sahib, there," said the Burman. "We have reached now the path which the sahib, your father, followed. We made our camp, one night, under those trees."

He pointed to a group of n.o.ble teak trees growing beside the little brook, and Jack strode forward, and was soon standing on the spot where his father had camped a month or two before. He had scarcely reached the place when he received proof positive that Me Dain was right. Something glittered in the rays of the sinking sun. It was an empty tin tossed carelessly into a clump of wild-fig bushes. Jack picked it up with a cry of recognition.

"Look here," he said; "the Burman's. .h.i.t the trail all right. Here's one of the governor's empty tobacco tins. He's never smoked anything else in my knowledge of him."

Jack held in his hand an empty tin which bore the name of a brand of Carolina tobacco. Though little known out of America, the tobacco was an immense favourite with Mr.. Haydon, who carried an ample supply of it with him wherever he went.

"Sure thing," chuckled Buck. "That's one o' the Professor's tins.

Well, we'll follow him up."

They camped that night under the teak trees, and with the first light of the next morning, began to follow up the track which Mr.. Haydon had taken some time before, the track which led into the wild hill-country, where U Saw, the Ruby King, was all-powerful.

They now moved with the utmost caution. When they saw a caravan of cattle, laden with salt, marching along a hill road they were about to cross, they hid from it in the jungle. When they saw afar off the spire of a paG.o.da peeping over the trees, and knew they were near a village, they sent Me Dain ahead to make inquiries, and find whether the villagers were familiar with the name of U Saw. And so for three days they worked cautiously along the track running up into the hills where Thomas Haydon had found the immense ruby of priceless value.

On the fourth morning they were just breaking camp, when, to their surprise, a troop of gaily dressed villagers pa.s.sed them, and called out a cheerful greeting to Me Dain. The Burman went forward to talk to them, while Jack, Jim, and Buck went on with their packing, and tried to look unconcerned.

They were in reality vexed that they had been seen. But the bunch of walking figures had descended the ravine in which they were camped so suddenly and unexpectedly, that there was no time to get out of the way.