"Don't you think, Uncle," the latter said one evening, "that I might try to learn something by going up with Surajah alone? We could strike off into the hills, as if on a shooting expedition, just as we used to do from Tripataly, except that I should stain my face and hands. The people in the villages on the top of the ghauts are, every one says, simple and quiet. They have no love for Tippoo or Mysore, but are content to pay their taxes, and to work quietly in their fields. There will be little fear of our being interfered with by them." "You might find a party of Tippoo's troops in one of the villages, Dick, and get into trouble." "I don't see why we should, Uncle. Of course, we should not go up dressed as we are, but as shikarees, and when we went into a village, should begin by asking whether the people are troubled with any tigers in the neighbourhood. You see, I specially came out here to go into Mysore in disguise, and I should be getting a little practice in this way, besides obtaining news for you." "I am certainly anxious to get news, Dick. So far, I have had nothing to send down, except that the reports, from all the passes, agree in saying that they have learned nothing of any movement on the part of Tippoo, and that no spies have come down the passes, or any armed party whatever. This is good, so far as it goes, but it only shows that the other passes are, like this, entirely deserted. Therefore, we really know nothing whatever. Even at this moment, Tippoo may have fifty thousand men gathered on the crest of the hills, ready to pour down tomorrow through one of the passes; and therefore, as I do not think you would be running any great danger, I consent to your going with Surajah on a scouting expedition, on foot, among the hills. As you say, you must, of course, disguise yourselves as peasants. You had better, in addition to your guns, each take a brace of pistols, and so armed, even if any of the villagers were inclined to be hostile, they would not care about interfering with you." "Thank you, Uncle. When would you expect us back, if we start tomorrow morning?" "That must be entirely in your hands, Dick. You would hardly climb the ghauts and light upon a village in one day, and it might be necessary to go farther, before you could obtain any news. It is a broken country, with much jungle for some distance beyond the hills, and the villages lying off the roads will have but little communication with each other, and might know nothing, whatever, of what was happening in the cultivated plains beyond. At any rate, you must not go into any villages on the roads leading to the heads of the passes; for there are forts everywhere, and you would be certain to find parties of troops stationed in them.