“QUIPU BILL”
Romance! Adventure. To Cliff, Tom and Nicky the ancient capital city of
the Inca empire was built on those two words.
Not that Cuzco, when they reached it, had any of its old treasures;
Spanish invaders had stripped it centuries before. But the memory was
there among the ruins.
The native Peruvian Indians—over whom the Incas had ruled, for the Incas
were a superior tribe which governed its subjects kindly but
firmly—these natives were shiftless, poor and inclined to be lazy.
But to the three adventurers, with their imaginations fired by what
Cliff had read and what Mr. Whitley had told them on the boats, Cuzco
still echoed to the tramp of armies carrying bows and arrows, swords and
light shields; the great square shook again to the shouts of hosts
gathered for ceremonies and feasting in the rites of their worship of
the Sun.
“It is certainly interesting,” declared Cliff, as they stood near the
stripped temple which had once rivaled in splendor any other place of
worship ever built. “The gold cornice is gone and so is the silver and
so are the emeralds and ornaments. But we can imagine them. And notice
how perfectly the edges of these stones are ground and fitted and
matched.”
“How big they are, too,” Nicky added, “tons, some of them must weigh.
The Incas had no beasts of burden to haul things—how they ever got these
stones cut and shaped and hauled here and lifted into place—it is too
much for me.”
“Patience and time did it,” Tom said, “I believe they say it took fifty
thousand men twenty years and more to build one great palace or temple.”
“With their hands—and without iron tools,” Cliff added, “they mixed some
tin with copper and made an alloy that they could make almost as hard as
steel. But their roads and their aqueducts and their buildings all took
labor and plenty of it.”
“Isn’t it time we started for the hotel?” Tom glanced at his watch,
“Quipu Bill Sanders is to come to see us at four.”
They agreed and turned to retrace their way around the ruin.
As they rounded a corner Cliff, in the lead, stopped sharply, in
surprise. While there was one chance in a thousand that they should
encounter the very Indian who had been with the Spaniard in Amadale, it
was certain that the fellow into whom Cliff had almost banged had turned
and seemed to stiffen when he saw them.
He stood facing a slender fellow, almost a boy, whose well developed leg
muscles made Cliff think of a runner. With a swift word under his breath
as the trio of chums stared, the Indian sent the youth off; and he was a
runner and no mistake. He went lightly but with almost incredible speed
down the road. The stalwart Indian paid no attention to Cliff but
hastened away.
“Do you think he was——?” Nicky whispered.
“He jumped,” Tom replied.
“Ought we to follow him?” Nicky wondered.
Cliff thought not. The runner was gone, the Indian might have been
surprised to see white youths turn suddenly into view. Cliff could see
no advantage to be gained by following.
They crossed the square to enter one of the four straight avenues which
quartered the city. Cuzco was beautifully laid out, every ancient street
as straight as if made by a surveyer’s lines. Presently they reached the
“tambo” or inn.
Bill Sanders was already there: he and John Whitley were in the
courtyard around which all the rooms opened. Bill was squatted on his
heels, cowboy fashion, with a knife in his hand, idly whittling a stick.
As he saw them and stood up they saw that he was tall and very thin; so
thin, in fact, that he looked more like an underfed man than a tough,
sinewy, sturdy mountaineer. However his skin was brown with healthy
exposure and his grip, when they shook hands, made Nicky wince a little.
Quipu Bill Sanders had the eyes of a fox and the courage of a lion; and
he was cunning, too; but his cunning was not the stealthy, wicked sort.
“You know who I am,” he greeted. “Let’s see if I know which of you is
which.”
Cliff, who had discovered a little skein of colored yarn at the roadside
near the inn entrance and who had paused to glance at it and slip it
aimlessly in his pocket as some decorative native object about which he
would ask later, came forward at once.
“You’re Cliff,” said Bill. “The others stood back for you. And this is
Tom—because he sort of fits his name, for he looks quiet and has a manly
grip. Of course there’s only Nicky left so this must be Nicky.”
They smiled at his deduction and felt as though they had known him for a
long time, he was so easy to meet. He already called Mr. Whitley by his
first name, insisted they call him Bill, and alluded to them as
“comrade” or “comrade Cliff.”
“How is it you are called ‘Quipu’ Bill?” Nicky asked at once.
Bill squatted and began work on his stick again.
“The Incas didn’t have any alphabet or writing to keep their records and
history,” Bill answered, “Nor any stone carvings such as you see in
Egypt. When they wanted to send a message or make a record, or even
figure up accounts, they used wool yarn of different colors and wove it
together with different knots. The colors meant something and so did the
placing of the knots and the number and the way they were made.
“They called these records or messages ‘quipus’ and a fellow who
understood them, could make them and read them, was a ‘quipucamayu.’”
“And you studied and got to be one of them,” Nicky guessed.
“Yep! So I shortened it down to just the name of the yarn message.”
“Were they like this? Isn’t this one?” asked Cliff, recalling what he
had found. He produced it. Bill nodded.
“That’s one. Where did you get it?”
Cliff told him. Bill dropped his stick and became suddenly mighty
serious.
“Why—look here! This is queer. This thing is a message about two grown
men and some children and mountains and the snowy pass—and war—or
ambush——”
He began to study the short woven length with its knotted strands and
its weave of colors, some white, a bit of red and other colors mingled.
Then he looked up as he saw Tom’s eyes turn toward the road, visible
from the courtyard. They all looked. A youth—it might be the one they
had seen before—was searching. He went along, head bent low, eyes on the
road, turning from side to side.
Bill rose, dropping the quipu carelessly into his left coat pocket.
Cliff, who was always observant, noted it though he paid little
attention, being too busy wondering what Bill meant to do.
He went to the road and called. The youth turned, came back to him.
There was a brief exchange of words, too far away to be heard. Then Bill
put a hand in his pocket, drew out an object of woven yarn. The boyish
fellow almost snatched it and while Bill called and pretended to be very
angry the boy dashed out of sight and Bill strolled back to the party.
“For Pete’s sake!” exclaimed Mr. Whitley, appearing exasperated. “You
gave him that quipu.”
“I gave him that quipu—yep.”
“But—with the Spaniard visiting America to forestall that letter and
with our lads seeing the Indian give that runner a quipu—don’t you see
that the message might have been about us?”
Bill nodded. “It all hooks up. It likely was,” he agreed.
John Whitley stared, as did Nicky and Tom. Was this new acquaintance as
much on their side as he claimed to be?
“Wasn’t that the same boy you saw?” John Whitley inquired.
“It was, sir,” Nicky answered. “He had a bright yellow thing-umjig on
his head.”
Bill whittled one side of his stick to satiny smoothness. “Now I don’t
know your mind and you don’t know mine,” he said, “But——”
“Wait!” broke in Cliff. “You dropped that quipu into your left hand
pocket, Bill. I think—I’m sure—I saw you take what you gave him out of
the other side of your coat.”
Bill grinned approval. “Right as can be,” he agreed. “I had picked up an
old quipu in my diggings to show you fellows and that’s the one I gave
him.” He showed them the other one, still where he had dropped it in his
pocket. “He’s taking—to whoever he’s sent to find—a quipu that has a
history or record of how a great sky god, or courtier of the Sun-god
that they worship—of how this Chasca came to earth and brought great
peace and prosperity to the Inca people.”
“Why, that fits in with my plan!” exclaimed Cliff.
“So it does,” said Mr. Whitley.
They had a long discussion. Bill told them that he “figured” that the
Indian who had been with the Spaniard had been sent out from the hidden
city to try and prevent the letter from being delivered.
“They must have learned about it,” he said, “and guess they tried to
stop it. Then, when they failed, they let us come on down here, where we
are, in a way of speaking, right in their hands——”
“That means that Cuzco is as far as our young chums will go,” said Mr.
Whitley seriously. The youthful faces became downcast. “I promised not
to take you into danger,” continued their Captain, as Bill named him,
“and so Cuzco will be your stopping place.” There was no argument. The
Captain’s word was law.
But events were to compel a change in Mr. Whitley’s ideas.