CHAPTER X 

 UDA PRANG-JUNGLE HUNTER 



UDA PRANG said I should not get a rhino 

 up Kampar River way; and he came uncom- 

 fortably close to telling the truth— for the rhino 

 nearly got me. 



Uda always told the truth. How that came to 

 be is a story by itself; and worth the telling, as you 

 shall judge. It seems that Uda was really an 

 Achenese, as those natives in the extreme north- 

 western end of Sumatra are called, and during one 

 of the conflicts which the Dutch troops and the 

 Achenese have been having with more or less fre- 

 quency now for a generation or so, Uda's father 

 was killed, his little house destroyed, and Uda and 

 his mother just escaped into the jungle with their 

 lives. Here they remained in hiding for some 

 days, living on roots and wild fruit, secure in the 

 knowledge that no Dutchmen would follow into the 

 untracked tropical wilderness. Gradually they 

 worked south and toward the east shore, and one 

 day, skirting the jungle edge, Uda spied an English 

 coast-wise steamer lying at anchor and discharg- 

 ing her cargo into a small fleet of sampans which 



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