erefore cannot make a vocal
sound. It was more likely a wild pig, for there are a number about
here," said Burton, who was a great sportsman.

Mark, however, felt certain he had distinctly seen the animal's quills,
so a little later he quietly left the camp without saying a word to any
one as to where he was going.

At nine o'clock that night Mark had not returned to camp, and Burton,
who had remained to dinner, suggested that he might have got lost, or
met with an accident; so a search was at once commenced.

CHAPTER III.--THE MYSTERIOUS FAKIR

"Well, Burton, what is your opinion now?" asked Doctor Mullen on their
return to camp about three o'clock in the morning, after an unsuccessful
search for Mark.

"I am sorry to say I think he has met with a serious accident and is
unable to help himself. Listen to those natives shouting 'Sahib! Sahib!'
and far beyond them others are calling, and the boy would have replied
if he could have done so. You are sure he went alone?" asked Burton.

"Yes. He took his gun, which seems to suggest that he started for that
lake about a mile from here after duck. Had he gone after oorial he
would have taken his rifle and would have been accompanied by the
shikari," said the Doctor, who was greatly distressed about his son's
disappearance.

"As soon as it is light I will have every nullah and bush searched for
miles round," said Burton, and then he mused without giving expression
to his thoughts. "He may have fallen over a kud (precipice), or his gun
may have burst, or he may have been bitten by a snake, or he may have
run against those--well, fragments of slab"; and he left the tent and
sent off messages to the headmen of the villages around.

Harry Burton was one of the cleverest officers in the Indian police; he
was a few years over thirty, a dark-complexioned man of medium height,
very agile and powerful, and was known to the Salt Range natives as Koj
(tracker) Burton Sahib, owing to his smartness in following up the
slightest clue.

Burton, at the Doctor's request, went to occupy Mark's empty tent for an
hour or two, and as he stretched himself on the camp bed his busy brain
was engaged in trying to form a connection between the broken slab and
Mark's absence, and these thoughts kept him awake, so he was the first
to hear the footsteps of an approaching horse.

"Hello! Is that you, Ellison?" greeted Burton, as the new arrival
dismounted.

"Yes. I heard at Gunjyal abo