"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 noble 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 hit 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.