Three days later she stood at the frontier, and her servant set about arguing and bargaining with the mahouts to engage elephants for the three days’ march through jungles and mountainous divides to the capital.  Three elephants were necessary.  There were two howdah elephants and one pack elephant, who was always lagging behind.  Through long aisles of magnificent trees they passed, across hot blistering deserts, dotted here and there by shrubs and stunted trees, in and out of gloomy defiles of flinty rock, over sluggish and swiftly flowing streams.  The days were hot, but the nights were bitter cold.  Sometimes a blue miasmic haze settled down, and the dry raspy hides of the elephants grew damp and they fretted at their chains.

Rao, the khidmutgar Kathlyn had hired in Calcutta, proved invaluable.  Without him she would never have succeeded in entering the strange country; for these wild-eyed Mohammedan mahouts (and it is pertinent to note that only Mohammedans are ever made mahouts, it being against the tenets of Hinduism to kill or ride anything that kills) scowled at her evilly.  They would have made way with her for an anna-piece.  Rao was a Mohammedan himself, so they listened and obeyed.

All this the first day and night out.  On the following morning a leopard crossed the trail.  Kathlyn seized her rifle and broke its spine.  The jabbering of the mahouts would have amused her at any other time.

“Good, Mem-sahib,” whispered Rao.  “You have put fear into their devils’ hearts.  Good!  Chup!” he called.  “Stop your noise.”

After that they gave Kathlyn’s dog tent plenty of room.

One day, in the heart of a natural clearing, she saw a tree.  Its blossoms and leaves were as scarlet as the seeds of a pomegranate.

“Oh, how beautiful!  What is it, Rao?”

“The flame of the jungle, Mem-sahib.  It is good luck to see it on a journey.”

About the tree darted gay parrakeets and fat green parrots.  The green plumage of the birds against the brilliant scarlet of the tree was indescribably beautiful.  Everywhere was life, everywhere was color.  Once, as the natives seated themselves of the evening round their dung fire while Kathlyn busied with the tea over a wood fire, a tiger roared near by.  The elephants trumpeted and the mahouts rose in terror.  Kathlyn ran for her rifle, but the trumpeting of the elephants was sufficient to send the striped cat to other hunting-grounds.  Wild ape and pig abounded, and occasionally a caha wriggled out of the sun into the brittle grasses.  Very few beasts or reptiles are aggressive; it is only when they feel cornered that they turn.  Even the black panther, the most savage of all cats, will rarely offer battle except when attacked.

Meantime the man who had followed Kathlyn arrived at the city.

Five hours later Kathlyn stepped out of her howdah, gave Rao the money for the mahouts and looked about.  This was the gate to the capital.  How many times had her father passed through it?  Her jaw set and her eyes flashed.  Whatever dangers beset her she was determined to meet them with courage and patience.