An elephant, with a native dozing on his head, was advancing toward us.
As the last native was running across the clearing, I looked up to see the “king” gazing down upon us. He showed not a sign of excitement.
“These wild men are a useless lot of animals,” he said. “I’m glad you turned out.” Then he waddled back into his palace.
We returned to our bungalow and started the phonograph again. Fully an hour afterward the “king” walked in upon us. He carried what looked like a great sausage, wrapped in thick brown paper.
“I’m always glad to help a white man,” he said breathlessly, “especially when he has done me a service.”
I took the parcel in one hand, and nearly lost my balance as he let it go. It weighed several pounds. By the time I had recovered from my surprise he was gone. I sat down and unrolled the package. It contained fifty silver tecals.
Four days later we were miles beyond the place, on our way toward the mouth of the Menam. As we lay resting in a tangled thicket, a crashing of underbrush brought us anxiously to our feet. We peered out through the maze of branches. An elephant was coming toward us. We jumped back in terror. A second glance showed us, however, that a native sat dozing on his head. Behind him came another and another of the great, heavy animals, fifteen in all, some with armed men on their backs. We stepped out of our hiding-place in time to meet the chief of the company, who rode between the seventh and eighth elephants on a stout-limbed pony. He was an Englishman, a manager for the Bombay-Burma Lumber Company, who had spent fifteen years in wandering through the teak forests of Siam. Never before, he declared, had he known white men to travel through these forests alone and without guns. He urged us to turn back and spend the night with him. When we declined, he warned us to keep a sharp lookout in the forest beyond, declaring that he had killed two tigers and a murderous savage within the past week.
For miles we struggled on through the tangle of vines, bushes, and branches. Nowhere was there a sign that anyone had been there before us. The shadows lengthened eastward; twilight fell and thickened to darkness. To travel by night was utterly impossible. We tried to do so, but lost our way and sank to our knees in a slimy swamp. When we had dragged ourselves out, we found that we could not remember in which direction we had been traveling. With raging thirst and gnawing hunger, we threw ourselves down in the depths of the wilderness. The ground was soft and wet. In ten minutes we had sunk until we were half buried. I pulled my bundle loose and rolled over to another spot. It was softer and wetter than the one I had left.
“Hark!” whispered James suddenly. “Is that a dog barking? Perhaps there’s a village near.”