THE MYSTERY BOYS
AND THE
INCA GOLD
By VAN POWELL
Author _of_
“The Mystery Boys Series,” etc.
[Illustration: Mystery Boys logo]
THE
WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
Cleveland, Ohio New York City
Copyright, 1931
_by_
THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
[Illustration: World Book logo]
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Dead Letter Comes to Life 5
II. The Mystery Boys Add a Member 13
III. Gold, and a Life At Stake 21
IV. “Quipu Bill” 30
V. The Chums Prove Their Mettle 39
VI. A New Mystery Develops 49
VII. Cliff Tries a Ruse 59
VIII. The Outcome 67
IX. Ambushed! 78
X. The Hidden City 89
XI. “Chasca, Hailli!” 98
XII. Cliff Faces a Problem 114
XIII. The Games 123
XIV. Gold, and a Surprise 131
XV. The Feast of Raymi 139
XVI. The Mystery Boys Hold Council 147
XVII. From Bad to Worse 154
XVIII. Tit For Tat 163
XIX. Huamachaco’s Secret 174
XX. On the Temple Steps 179
XXI. Rats in a Trap 184
XXII. The Temple of the Sun 189
XXIII. Chasca Appears Again 196
XXIV. The Inca Speaks 202
XXV. Tom’s Adventure 207
XXVI. Into the Dungeons 213
XXVII. Beasts of Burden 221
XXVIII. “Can We Get There in Time?” 229
XXIX. At the Cistern 236
XXX. A Fortune by Misfortune 244
XXXI. Cliff Becomes a Prophet 253
XXXII. The Andes Close Their Jaws 258
XXXIII. No Way Out? 264
XXXIV. Huayca Plays Decoy 269
XXXV. Folded Arms 278
THE MYSTERY BOYS
AND THE INCA GOLD
CHAPTER I
A DEAD LETTER COMES TO LIFE
The whole mysterious affair puzzled Cliff. To have those queer strangers
appear suddenly at Aunt Lucy’s with their unusual questions threw him a
little off his stride.
“No,” he answered the stocky Spaniard with the crafty, shifty eyes, “I
did not get a letter from Peru. Who wrote it? Is it from my father? How
do you know about it?”
While the Spaniard interpreted the answer to his companion Cliff studied
them both. If the tall, stalwart man with copper skin and piercing eyes
was not an Indian, Cliff had never seen a truthful picture of one. He
wore European clothes but he was not at his ease in them. While he
listened to the queer language which the Spaniard used he kept his eyes
boring Cliff and Cliff saw that his denial was not believed.
Copper-skin muttered something and the Spaniard turned again to Cliff.
“You not get letter? _Mi amigo_, my friend, say it mail ‘nine, ten week’
ago.”
“I can’t help that,” Cliff declared, “It hasn’t come. Who is it from—my
father?” Cliff had not heard from his father in nearly five years:
naturally he was anxious about the scholar who studied ancient
civilizations and who had gone to Peru to write a book about the Incas.
“Letter from man you not know.” The Spaniard was very impressive; he
spoke slowly, “When it come you not open it. You give to us _pronto_! We
pay much money.”
“Why?” demanded Cliff, “What is in the letter?”
The Spaniard turned and began exchanging words with the Indian. Cliff,
sitting with his chums, Nicky and Tom, on Aunt Lucy’s cottage porch,
looked at his friends helplessly. They, staring with wide eyes, showed
plainly that they could not help him with his puzzle. A letter from
Peru; from a man he did not know! It must be delivered to these
strangers unopened. They would pay well for it. Why? What was it all
about?
Clifford Gray was as clean-cut a youth of fifteen as any of the several
hundred who attended Amadale Military Academy, in this suburb of a
thriving mid-Western city. He was not handsome but he had clear, direct,
observant eyes, a firm, almost stubborn chin and a cheerful grin; his
body was well built and kept in splendid trim by much athletic activity.
That he was calm, cool, in full control of his finely muscled arms was
proved on the day that the Amadale baseball pitcher “blew up” in the
fourth inning of an important game, letting two runs come in and filling
two bases by “walking” a pair of the opposing team; Cliff went in to
pitch, with one man out. After two wild balls that clipped the corner of
the plate, he surprised the confident batsman with swift pitches which
rapped the catcher’s glove as the bat swung, and fine, teasing curves
that broke just too soon to be hit. After holding the opposing runs
where they were for the next five innings he drove in the tying run and
himself scored the needed one to win and became a hero in Amadale.
He lived with his Aunt Lucy because his father traveled in distant
lands, studying old ruins for his histories of ancient people. Aunt Lucy
took a few “boarders” and mothered the boys without coddling them. Among
her “boarders” Tom and Nicky were favorites. Tom was a quiet, thoughtful
youth just a month older than Cliff; Nicky, talkative and full of
spirits, was the youngest of the trio. All three were drawn together by
a common bond; each had a mystery in his life. Cliff’s mystery seemed in
a fair way to become very much alive.
The Spaniard and his companion had reached some agreement. Cliff, his
eyes missing nothing, his brain alert, surmised from the stocky
foreigner’s shifting glance that he was about to say something either
wholly or partly untrue.
“I tell you,” he stated to Cliff, “it look to you—how you say!—funny,
eh? I make you see.
“_Mi amigo_—this friend, he live in Quito, that place was once great
Peruvian city of Inca people.” Cliff nodded. He knew something about
Quito, capital of an empire conquered by the Incas before the Spaniards,
in their turn, conquered them.
“_Si! Si._ You _sabe_ Quito. White man come there—five year’ ago. Ask
this _amigo_ to guide to old ruins.”
“My father!” declared Cliff, eagerly, while Tom and Nicky sat forward on
the porch swing, intent and excited.
“_Quien sabe_—who knows? I think yes. This man agree to take white man
to old ruins in cordillerras—mountains! They stop in village where
is—how you say?—festival of wedding.
“White man get very drunk. He have fight and shoot natives.”
To Cliff that did not ring true; his father was a quiet man, not the
sort to take much wine or to use firearms except in self defense.
However, he said nothing.
“One native die,” went on the Spaniard, “Others very angry. Put white
man in prison. He think they kill him. He write letter and ask this
friend of me, here, to escape away and send letter. This man must swim
in river to escape. Water make the address of letter so it is not to
send.” He made a gesture of smudging ink and flung out his hands to
indicate helplessness.
“This friend not know what to do. He not read. He put letter away and
forget. He learn after ‘while the white man kill’ by natives.”
Cliff was saddened by the story, even though he had no proof that it
really concerned his father. Tom and Nicky looked sorrowful and
sympathetic.
“Ten week ago,” the Spaniard continued, “this man see another white man
in mountains, make hunt for the place of gold mining.”
“A prospector,” Nicky interrupted. Cliff nodded.
“This man ask white man about letter, what to do. I am in camp with
white man, _Americano_. But I not read letter. Other one do that and
grin and laugh and take new envelop’ and put on address from inside
letter. He go away and mail at Cuzco.
“Then——” he was very impressive. “He tell me letter say this friend of
me is one who lead other white man to death!”
That explained why they were so anxious to see the letter, of course. It
might not be a letter from his father—but who else in Peru knew him or
knew his address? But his father would not get into a brawl. Perhaps he
did write that he was led into danger. In that case the Indian was
guilty of it.
“The letter has not arrived,” Cliff repeated.
“Maybe it went to the Dead Letter Office,” Nicky suggested. “Maybe the
other fellow didn’t address it right.”
The Spaniard did not interpret this; evidently he did not understand,
not being familiar with American postal systems.
“White man dead—not letter” he corrected. Cliff smiled.
“We can’t do anything until it comes,” he said, “Then——”
“You give to us?” eagerly. “You not open. We pay——”
“I won’t promise anything like that,” Cliff shook his head, Tom and
Nicky doing likewise. “But I will promise not to open it until you are
here. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
When the Spaniard had interpreted, his companion said something that
made the interpreter laugh with a vicious glint in his eyes.
At the same instant Nicky laid an excited hand on Cliff’s arm. All of
them saw the direction of his intent gaze and turned to look.
The postman was coming along the suburban street, chatting with this one
and that one as he delivered mail. His mission was clear to the
foreigners and they stood waiting, tense and eager. Those were mild
poses compared to the suspense of the three chums. They almost trembled
in their excitement.
At their gate their jolly letter carrier waved something at Cliff.
“I declare,” Cliff, eyes fixed on him, heard him banter. “How did you
ever get you a girl so far away? Why, it would cost you a year’s
allowance to go and call on her!”
He skimmed a fat missive toward the porch. Cliff ran half way down the
steps and caught it. From above him, the others stared. There was no
mistaking that unusual stamp.
The letter was from Peru.