GOLD, AND A LIFE AT STAKE
Cliff was quite as anxious as the others to see what the envelope from
Peru contained; he slit it and drew out two folded papers.
While the others watched eagerly he glanced hastily at one paper and
crammed it into his pocket as he opened the second.
“It is!” he cried, “It is from my father!”
They crowded closer and urged him to read it aloud. The letter, after
the address, fortunately placed there so that the destination was known
even when its outer cover was spoiled in the river, was amazing.
“Dear Son and dear Lucy:
“If you ever receive this it will be fond love and farewell.
“I am in a city in the most inaccessible valley of the Andes. When the
Spaniards conquered Peru some Incas and their subjects fled here and
set up a city. I have tried for over four years to get away but there
is no place where the cliffs can be climbed.
“When first I went to Quito I saved a native who was very ill. In
gratitude he told me of this hidden city and even guided me to a
mountain where a glimpse of it was possible; but he would not help me
to enter the valley. When I said I must explore and study it he
deserted me. Later I lowered myself with a rope and found a city of
the old Inca sort, filled with gold.”
“In the old Inca empire, before the Spanish looted it,” Mr. Whitley
broke in, “gold was so plentiful that it was used for dishes, utensils,
ornaments, even for decorating their temples to the sun, which they
worshipped as a god—but go on, Cliff.”
Cliff finished the letter without further interruption.
“It is a perfect treasure land. But, though there is a way in, there
is no way out. The natives are kind but they took away my rope; they
do not want me to escape and bring the outside world to their hidden
place.
“Being anxious to explain my absence I have trained and tamed a young
eagle and I am fastening this to its leg in the remote chance that it
may be found when I release him.
“If so, dear son Cliff—and sister Lucy—goodbye. I am very ill and fear
I may not get better.
“Your loving
“Father and Brother.”
“My!” exclaimed Nicky, “but people get well, Cliff,” as he saw the
depression in his chum’s face.
“The Spaniard told a different story,” Tom said, thoughtfully, “I think
he wanted to get this for the Indian, to prevent you from learning where
your father is. The Incas may be afraid you will try to go there.”
“I would,” Cliff said eagerly, “If——” ruefully “——I had any money and
knew where it was.”
“What was the other paper?” Mr. Whitley inquired.
Cliff had forgotten it; he drew it from his pocket and read it aloud. It
was in the same handwriting that the envelope bore, and was in a style
totally different from his father’s letter.
Cliff, reading its clipped sentences slowly, began to tremble with
excitement. When he finished and looked around he saw in the faces about
him eagerness, hope, wistfulness.
The letter read:
“Clifford Gray; Sir:
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. But I think we will know each
other.
“I caught a tame eaglet and found your pa’s letter. There was a map,
too. It was to show how he got to where he went into the valley.
“I kept the map. Tell you why. I went to the place and saw the valley.
I am a prospector and know these cordillerras.
“Reason I kept the map is I want to be with you if you go to find your
pa. If you don’t it’s not any use to you anyhow. If you do I can help.
“What I want is some of that Inca gold. Not a lot. Enough to settle
down, buy a ranch, live easy. I will be in Cuzco at the Tambo
Atahualpa—that means Atahualpa hotel, for a while, till I hear from
you. Let me know. With you and a couple more I could find your father
and we could get him out.
“Signed respectfully,
“Quipu Bill Sanders.”
“Oh—if we could!” Cliff said. It was clear that his comrades felt
exactly as he did.
Mr. Whitley was very thoughtful. While the trio discussed possibilities
and re-read the two letters time after time, he sat without saying
anything. Finally he looked up.
“See here,” he told them, “you have made me a member of your secret
order and asked for advice.” They nodded eagerly.
“I think,” he went on, “that if your relatives would let you go with me,
it would be an instructive and an interesting trip.”
The chums agreed with that quite heartily. But how?—where was money to
come from?
“I have been given some money recently. I inherited it,” Mr. Whitley
informed them, “I will be glad to advance the amount for expenses. If we
find Cliff’s father and rescue him I shall feel that the money is well
spent.”
“And there is the treasure!” Nicky exclaimed.
“Yes,” John Whitley agreed. There began an eager discussion of what they
would do with their shares; but the young history instructor became
rather serious.
“I am not so sure that we will try to get the treasure,” he told them.
Their faces fell, but they did not argue.
“You see,” he went on, “we aren’t going to be thieves. That treasure is
the Incas’ own; it isn’t like buried gold. Of course, the people have
taken a white man prisoner, and perhaps if we find it wise to take
enough away from them to reimburse us for the expenses, it would not be
dishonest.”
“I agree with you,” Cliff declared, “anyway, if we do find my father——”
a hope which his chums eagerly echoed, “——he will be able to get all the
royalties from his other books, which the publishers have held back, not
knowing what to do, and only giving me enough to pay expenses. He will
share with us all. My father is that kind of man!”
They were quite satisfied. The adventure would be sufficient as Tom put
it.
Eager were their plans. Lists of things to take were made; plentiful
discussions ensued, even amounting almost to arguments, for Nicky wanted
a full arsenal of weapons, and enough ammunition to load down a mule.
But he gave it up, for Cliff, from a study of his father’s notes for
part of his book, assured them that the Incas were not very warlike or
cruel. They were not like the Mexican Aztecs, who, in days past, had
been cruel and harsh. The Incas, he said, were rather gentle, making war
only in self defense, or to add territory when it was essential to their
growth of empire.
Cliff, from his studies, conceived a great plan. Mr. Whitley agreed that
it would be worth trying. What it was, and how it would work out, only
time could tell; but it was so well thought of that some special
articles were included in their supplies in order that they could use
Cliff’s method of entry into the country.
“Of course that means if you boys go beyond Cuzco with us,” John Whitley
said, when he had secured parents’ consent to the adventure and had
given promises to avoid danger. The chums felt very certain that they
would go well beyond Cuzco, old Inca city, once capital of their vast
empire.
In time goodbyes were said, final promises made, handkerchiefs waved
from a departing train. The day spent in New York was a delight to the
chums, and so was the embarkation on the great white fruit liner which
would take them southward.
They laughed when, soon after the boat sailed, great clusters of bananas
were placed within easy reach of passengers; that was a custom on the
liners and it made the tropics seem very real and quite close already.
The days of their voyage to the Panama Canal were spent in studying some
books of Inca lore, and in working out better systems of signals for the
Mystery Boys’ order.
The passage through the Canal, the visit to one of its huge mechanically
worked locks, the sights of the strange mingling of East and West in
Panama City, added zest to the trip.
Then, tracing the route taken by the original Spanish caravels, they
turned, as Nick said, “down the map,” along the South American coast,
and landed at Lima, in Peru, where Mr. Whitley wanted to locate an old
acquaintance of his college days and get more information and a proper
set of ancient Inca costumes, if possible, for use in Cliff’s plan.
They found the city a thriving one and spent pleasant days there. The
journey to Cuzco seemed almost endless, so eager were they. But, like
all things that depend on time, the trip was eventually completed and
the chums, hardly able to speak for their suppressed excitement, saw the
first glimpses of what Cliff termed “The Gateway to Adventure”—Cuzco!