Fourteen-year-old Terry Bowen travels from the U.S. to India to meet his father Hugh Bowen for the first time. After a dispute with his father, Terry runs away and is befriended by Raji. Together, Terry and Raji have many adventures in the jungles of India. The cultural and religious differences between Terry, an American Christian, and Raji, an Indian Hindu, cause conflict. However, the boys overcome their differences and survive to deliver Maya, a sacred white elephant, and her calf to a far away temple.
An boy from Montana travels half way around the world to Bombay, India to be with his father. The young man soon learns that his father is missing and probably killed by a tiger. Not willing to accept that his father is dead, he begins a country wide search for the missing man.
Terry runs up against a wall of silence concerning the location of his father when he enters a village that is the stronghold of a tyrannical leader.
Raji and Terry attempt to civilize a boy raised by wild animals while trying to find Terry's father.
The two boys find danger in Bombay when they run into a smuggling ring while searching for Terry's father.
Maya has been injured by an ivory poacher causing Terry to plead for assistance from an old retired British army colonel.
Terry arranges for Raji to swap places with a prince who could be his twin, all so the prince can help Terry in his quest.
After Terry is injured, he takes refuge in the house of a retired British officer who is being harrased by thieves.
Terry is taken advantage of when a crook sells him a bus that doesn't work.
Maya is the boy's only hope after they are unjustly arrested for stealing an idol from a temple, along with the murder of a priest.
Terry and Raji are commandeered by a diamond thief who is being pursued by the police from the air.
The boys get mixed up in the forced marriage of a princess and the man who she doesn't want to marry.
The boys are in extreme danger after joining a traveling circus which they hoped would provide clues to where Terry's father is.
The police are after the boys when then get involved in a small community's quarrels.
A bogus archaeologist enlists the boys to help him, only he's a gold thief and their lives are in great danger.
Raji is kidnapped by hoods who think he is the son of a rich man.
After a peasant is arrested by police on a bogus murder charge, the boys try to help him, putting their own lives in danger.
In Terry's search for his father, he and Raji discover an American doctor who has become a recluse in the remote part of India.
