A NEW MYSTERY DEVELOPS
Quichua, the almost universal dialect which the Incas had introduced
into Peru as they conquered its tribes, was quite well understood by
Bill Sanders. He spent much time on their daily marches, and in camp,
teaching it to John Whitley and the three chums. It was the language
that the hidden city’s inhabitants would be most apt to understand, he
believed.
When they had learned that a “chasqui” was a runner or messenger; that
Cuzco, the name of the principal city and hub of the old empire was so
called because the word meant navel, the center of the body; and many
other things such as that “Pelu” meant river and was thought by some to
have been the word that gave the Spaniards their name for the
nation—Peru!—they began to study brief sentences and after a while could
hold short and simple conversations together.
In return they taught Mr. Whitley and Bill the secret ways of exchanging
ideas in the signals of their order. After some discussion and
hesitation Bill was made a member of The Mystery Boys and although the
chums debated the good sense of letting him know all their signs, they
finally gave them to him—and as events proved, they were to be glad they
had done so.
In camp Cliff and his friends spent a great deal of time studying the
rude map: because Quipu Bill had some misgivings about letting the only
guide they had become damaged or lost, Tom, who was quite a draftsman,
made a very good copy which they used and over which they watched
jealously so that the natives would not discover what it was.
The small party—not more than eight—which had been following them hung
on like wolves on the flank of a buck: when Bill hurried along the
others kept the same distance, when his party lagged the others dallied
also.
“I think it is either the Indian, or the Spaniard, or both of them,”
said Bill, “They know—at least the Spaniard does—that there was a map,
for he was in camp when I caught the eaglet.” But the other party kept
just too far behind for them to see, even with fine glasses, just who
comprised the group.
Then, one afternoon, Cliff looked down from a high point and called to
Bill.
“Bill—get out your field glasses. I don’t see that party anywhere
below.” Bill looked. John Whitley and the youths took their turns. But
there was no sign of pursuit.
“We must have lost them,” Nicky said.
“But we have been on a straight road all day,” Mr. Whitley objected.
“No. Either they have dropped too far behind for us to see them at all,
or they have given it up——”
“Or they have turned into some side pass, thinking that can get around
us in some way,” Bill added, “But they won’t. I guess we have lost them
for good.”
They all felt rather glad of it. There had been some fun in the game of
hare and hounds at first, but after a few days the continual watching
became wearisome and perhaps worrisome. Their natives noticed it, for
one thing, and they did not want the Peruvians to think their story of
an engineering and educational trip was a ruse. They all breathed more
freely that night as they made camp.
But Cliff kept wondering why the pursuit had stopped.
That night—and it was cold for they were very high up in the levels just
a little below snow level—he lay rolled in his blanket, in the tent the
chums shared, thinking about it.
“Cliff,” Tom’s voice whispered through the dark, “Are you asleep?”
“No,” Cliff answered under his breath. But he need not have been so
cautious. Nicky was not asleep, either: and he declared the fact
promptly.
“I’m awake too. Is it to be a session of the Inner Circle?”
“Maybe,” Tom replied, “I was going to ask Cliff if he noticed that
Indian that Bill calls Whackey—the one whose name is Huayca?”
“Notice him? Notice what about him?” Nicky demanded.
“He kept dropping back from one carrier to the next one, right along the
line, today.”
“Yes,” Cliff said, “I saw him. He talked to each one for a few minutes,
then he dropped behind and talked to the next one.”
“What do you suppose it meant?” Nicky wondered. “Nothing, I guess. I
have seen him do it before.”
“You have?” Cliff and Tom asked it at one instant.
“Certainly. But he is the boss isn’t he? He has to give orders.”
“When he gives orders he yells them out so that we all hear him,” Tom
objected.
“In the morning,” Cliff said, “Let’s ask Mr. Whitley and Bill if they
have noticed.” They agreed and discussed the curious disappearance of
the trailing party for a while.
Then, suddenly, Cliff hissed under his breath, “Sh-h-h-h!”
They became alert, intent: they listened with straining ears.
“It was only some pebbles—a little landslide,” Nicky whispered. “They do
that in the mountains. I saw some pebbles slip this afternoon.”
Nevertheless Cliff gently crawled out of his blanket and his head came
in rather vigorous contact with Tom’s cranium for he was doing the same
thing. They forgot the bump in the excitement for more pebbles were
clattering at a little distance.
Cliff and Tom unhooked their tent flap and without widening its opening
much, looked into the dim, starlit night.
Nicky pushed his face between them. Each felt that the others were
tense, Nicky was trembling a little. They stared and listened.
From a greater distance came the crackle of a broken twig.
Without a word Cliff pushed into the open and stared around. Then he saw
figures, silent, drifting like spectres through the night, shadows with
lumpy heads.
At first he almost cried out at a touch on his arm but in the instant
that he controlled his impulse he realized that it came from Nicky’s
grip on his arm.
“It’s Indians!” Nicky gasped.
“Yes,” said Tom, at his side; then he added in a puzzled way, “But they
are going away from us.”
“It’s our Indians——” Cliff said, “They’re running away. Hey!” he
shouted, then, poised to race after them, he called to his comrades to
waken Bill and Mr. Whitley; but they were already awake and emerging
dazedly from their tent as Cliff thrust the ground behind him with
racing feet, in hot pursuit of figures now making no effort to be quiet
as they galloped away.
It was a hazardous pursuit in the dark and on a strange mountain path;
but Cliff had observed, as was his habit, while they climbed earlier in
the day: he knew when to swerve to avoid a heavy boulder, he seemed to
avoid by instinct the more pebbled and slippery parts.
While Nicky and Tom, after shouting the news, pounded in pursuit he
overtook the hindmost runner.
“Stop—you!” he shouted. The man swerved. Cliff made a tackle. The man
tripped, was down. Instantly Cliff was erect again and racing on while
Tom caught up with the man already scrambling to his feet and held him
until Nicky arrived.
Then, from behind them, Bill, in the dialect, yelled a call to halt to
the natives. Cliff reached his second man and put a hand on his arm.
From behind came the flash of Quipu Bill’s rifle, fired into the air
over the runners’ heads.
They stopped, uncertainly, and Cliff, racing down the path, took
advantage of the interval to get to a point where he could at least try
to “bluff” and hold the men.
The natives clustered in a little knot. They had bundles on their
heads—probably most of the camp food and supplies. Cliff shouted to them
to stand while Mr. Whitley and Bill made a scrambling, awkward, but
rapid approach.
“Running out at night with our grub, eh?” Bill snapped, “You _hombres_
about face and back to camp!” He translated into dialect and they
sullenly obeyed for he still carried his rifle.
“All of ’em here?” he asked Mr. Whitley, “it’s so dark——”
“The fellow you call Whackey isn’t!” Cliff cried. Then a queer misgiving
assailed him. He rushed to Bill and whispered. Bill, bent to hear,
stiffened.
“Glory-gosh!” he gasped, “Go and see. In my coat pocket!”
They herded their morose captives back to camp while Cliff made his
hasty retreat and a thorough but equally hurried examination in certain
places.
He met Bill, approaching anxiously with John Whitley.
“It’s gone—the map’s gone!” he gasped.
“So that’s why the other party stopped following. That’s why Whackey
isn’t around!” exclaimed the chief of the party.
“I saw him, today,” Nicky cried, and explained, “Tom did, too.”
“Planned to cut away during the night,” Bill snapped, “Guess he planned
deeper, too: I think he expected these natives to make enough noise to
be caught—that gave him a chance to get the map. I wondered why he
watched me so closely, last couple of days.”
“Well, never mind,” Mr. Whitley counseled, “He and the others he went to
join cannot get there ahead of us. Bill knows the passes.”
“All but one place after we get back to the snowy pass,” Bill objected,
“Cliff’s pa only drew it rough and indicated the one right way—the way
he took; but I know there’s a regular slather of cross cuts and paths
between the cliffs up there. It’s all torn up by some earthquake long
ago. I’d need the map there!”
“Well, we have the copy Tom made—” but Mr. Whitley stopped, arrested by
Cliff’s clutch on his arm. Flashlights trained, the five, with a solemn
warning to the natives, who seemed not to know what to do and so were
for the time in no danger of mischief, hurried into Cliff’s tent. They
flicked their lights around but Cliff, catching one from Nicky, trained
it on the ground cloth.
Tiny fragments of paper, too fine ever to match together, littered the
cloth under Tom’s little writing case!