"Much obliged," replied the doctor; "but it's the wild ones I want to study. What's that?"
He stopped short, and brought his gun round ready to fire at any danger which might assail them from the jungle.
The boys had heard what startled their companion, and cocked their guns. For suddenly there was the quick rush of something behind the dense screen of verdure—a something which seemed to have been watching them, and had darted off as soon as they came near.
"Wild pig?" asked Harry.
"No, I think it was more like a man," replied the doctor. "What do you say, Phra?"
"I think it was a man, but how could a man rush through the jungle like that? We must ask Sree if there are any wild tribe people about here."
"There would not be nearer than the mountain region," said the doctor; "but whatever it was has gone. Look, they're making signals for us to come back."
The boys looked in the direction of the camp, where a thin mat had been hoisted, flag fashion, at the end of one of the bamboo poles of the boat; and hurrying their steps a little they reached the great tree beneath which the cooking fire had been made, to find the boatmen finishing their rice, and a capitally cooked meal waiting for them in the boat.
Sree shook his head at the suggestion of any people being near.
"Plenty of wild beasts, Sahib; and I have seen the tracks of a tiger that has been down to the water. There are plenty of monkeys, too, the greybeards and the big, black fellows; but I don't think we should find savage people here in the jungle. It would be a wild boar or a rhinoceros. No, not a rhinoceros; he would not have run away. It might have been a tapir."