AMBUSHED!
What to do next was a problem. They discussed it, breakfasting after
Huayca had been returned to camp. They had the map again; but, at the
same time, they had native carriers who had tried to slip away under
cover of darkness; they had Huayca, morose, sullen, who must be guarded
constantly or released to slip away and tell the Incas of their
movements.
The mystery of the Spaniard was cleared up: when Bill had gone to his
camp the night before he had seen from the way the man stumbled up that
his ankle had been turned; they had stopped to let it rest or to
improvise a rude _hamaca_—the native sedan-chair or palanquin, really
more of a stretcher.
They discussed matters from every angle but could not find a plan that
suited them all. If they went ahead their natives might disappear with
the very things that were most necessary to their plans: if they kept a
guard it would show that they were not the innocent travellers that they
claimed they were. Of course Huayca knew the truth; but had he told the
other natives? If they went on he might make their carriers turn against
him. If they released him he would certainly go straight to the Incas,
perhaps leaving the natives prepared to desert them or to lead them into
some trap and there desert them.
Their discussion had reached no end when they saw four natives coming up
the pass, carrying a roughly made litter. In it was Pizzara, the
Spaniard.
“I twis’ the foot,” he said after he had been brought to their circle
and his litter had been set down. “Thank you very much, I have eat the
breakfast.”
He rolled a cigarette and they watched him without speech.
“You no fools,” he declared, finally, “you know why I follow. When I was
in Senor Sander’s camp one Indian come and say he pay me for go to stop
letter. I try but—” he nodded at Mr. Whitley, “—I not so lucky.
“But Indian disappear in Lima. He not pay me. So I think to follow you
and so come to place where is much gold.
“But why must I follow? Let us join together. That way we are stronger.”
They exchanged surprised glances.
At a slight shake of the head from Mr. Whitley, Bill spoke. They were
not going after gold, he denied, they were going to try to rescue a
white man held captive by Incas. They all knew, of course, Cliff
thought, that it was useless to try to hoodwink the Spaniard: he knew
all but the exact route. It was wiser to admit the truth.
“We will discuss your offer,” John Whitley said, “perhaps we may agree
to it. We will let you know later.”
The Spaniard nodded, signaled to his bearers to remove his litter but
instead of returning down the pass he was carried the other way. They
saw why at once. His camp had been broken up and his natives, not very
heavily loaded, for he traveled light, came up the path and overtook
their master.
“I don’t know how you feel and you don’t know how I feel,” Bill was
whittling industriously as he spoke, “but it looks to me as though he
has shown us the way out.”
“I don’t see how,” Nicky broke in, “if we go with him he may spoil our
plans and get the gold—and—and—everything!”
“He’d follow us, anyhow,” Tom said.
“He won’t make as much trouble if he is with us as he might the other
way,” Cliff agreed, “he could be watched.”
“If his natives could carry some of our things,” Mr. Whitley said, “we
could discharge our own: they have not proved trustworthy.”
“That is my idea,” Bill nodded, “he has more muscle in his carriers than
he is using. Shall we join forces?”
They decided to travel in company. The spokesman was Bill. He explained
to Senor Pizzara that their own bearers had tried to run away with their
supplies; if he would let his carriers take heavier loads so they could
discharge their own, they would agree to his plan. He was eager to
accept the proviso.
Over the swaying bridge of osier and plank that spanned a chasm they
passed as one party; their own men went the other way with just enough
food to last until they reached the foothills.
Huayca they kept with them. He was not openly guarded but either Bill or
Mr. Whitley kept watch at night and he made no effort to escape.
Pizzara asked to see the map; there was no reason to refuse. He promised
solemnly that he would help them in their effort to rescue Cliff’s
father if he still lived; he would provide one more to aid their plans,
although these did not confide to him during the journey.
Up, ever up they toiled. Great cliffs of granite and porphyry, massive
and awe-inspiring, lined the path. Vast chasms yawned beside the way. As
Cliff expressed it, they were pygmies going through Nature’s giant
workshops, where heat and frost, sun and rain, earthquake and volcanic
upheaval, tore apart what had been built and threw the odds and ends
everywhere.
Colder and colder grew the sharp winds as they climbed into the snowy
land above the timberline.
It was to such a scene of grand and wild awesomeness that the three
chums turned smarting eyes, one icy morning, as they emerged from their
tent.
Beyond their camp a great pair of twin peaks reared snowy crests into
the golden light of dawn. Through the dip between those peaks ran the
snowy pass marked in the map. They could see part of it already, from
their camp in the slightly depressed space they had chosen in which to
avoid as much wind sweep as possible. It was a gorgeous sight. Jagged
rock, glistening white blankets of virgin snow, fire-lit at the peaks by
the approaching sunbeams, deep clefts diving into pitchy darkness, made
a sight they could never forget.
“But look!” said Nicky, first to get his fill of Nature’s marvels,
“There aren’t any Indians!”
“Good gravy!” agreed Tom with his favorite exclamation. “You’re right.
Where—? Oh, Bill! Say, Bill!” He and the others raced toward the figure
sitting composedly by a roaring dry-alcohol stove over whose wind-fanned
blaze he was heating coffee. Mr. Whitley emerged from his tent,
shivering, and joined them.
“What has happened?” he inquired.
“Just what I expected,” Bill said. “The gay Spanish Don has taken his
natives and gone on alone.”
“Deserted us!” cried Mr. Whitley.
“Deserted his first love for gold!” grinned Bill. “Yep! I guessed he
would, just about here.”
The chums looked at him in dismay.
“Oh, he left all our supplies,” Bill assured them. “Everything is
intact. That’s why I let him go.”
“But what shall we do?” asked Nicky.
“Follow!” stated Tom.
“Not exactly,” Bill corrected. “See—” he pointed toward the saddle-like
depression between the peaks,—“he goes that way. We turn right around on
our tracks and go back—that way!”
“Give up?” said Cliff, disappointedly.
“Nope! Climb down!”
They stared at him. Was good old Bill growing queer or was he trying to
be funny?
“Climb down?” Nicky demanded. “Where? Why? And where is Whackey?”
“You don’t know my mind, and—I’m not going to tell you!” Bill varied his
usual formula. “As for Whackey, I let him go in the deep, dark night. We
don’t need him any more.”
It was all a puzzle and baffled the young fellows. Mr. Whitley seemed to
be deeper in Bill’s confidence, for he smiled at them.
“Bill should not tease, up here in this cold place,” he said. “The truth
is, we are in the little cup of what must have been a high mountain
lake. It is just low enough in altitude to be below the eternal ice line
in summer. At present we are really camped on a vast cake of ice which
has frozen over it since the past summer. It will stay this way until
next year; then the ice will melt gradually and any snow that turns to
water will add to the reservoir.”
In centuries long gone, he explained, the Incas must have chosen this as
one of their water-reservoir links. They had wonderfully perfect systems
of aqueducts as the chums knew.
“At any rate,” he proceeded, “Bill is engineer enough to surmise that
the ruined and blocked-up stone depression we saw half a mile away is
part of an old Inca ‘pipe line’ or aqueduct, and that this one
communicates with others. In fact, when he came here the first time he
saw that it was possible to pretend to give up and retrace our way, and
then to dive into a sort of stone subway and go around to come out
beyond the place where there might be an ambush.”
“But the others will be caught,” Cliff said, in dismay.
“I warned Pizzara several days ago that the Incas were watching for us,”
Bill declared. “He thought I was trying to frighten him. We can’t chase
him! I think the worst that can happen will be that the Incas will drive
him back.”
Which, in fact, was a good guess.
A week later, after they had plunged into a rock-buttressed cut and
explored its communicating cuts, always working by compass to pass
around the frozen lake, they came to a place where Bill halted them
while he climbed the jagged, crumbled side of their cut to spy out the
lay of the land.
It had been no fun, that week in the cut. Packs were all exceedingly
heavy since five had to carry the loads of ten, even though depleted by
weeks of travel during which the food had dwindled rapidly. So they
struggled over rock debris, up sloping walls, over obstacles, sometimes
in dark tunnels for a short distance; but as Bill returned to them they
knew that it had been an effort well repaid.
“Trampled snow,” he said. “Abandoned packs. Signs of a fight. Rocks
dropped. Arrows stuck in the snow. I guess they turned our Spanish
friend back, and turned him quick!”
Perhaps Bill did not tell quite all he had seen; nor did the boys press
him for details.
Bill and Mr. Whitley decided that it was safe to go on; there were no
signs of Indians. It was supposed that Huayca had joined his own forces;
no doubt, seeing the white party turn and retrace its steps, he and the
others decided that they had turned back; at any rate they were not to
be seen, those Incas, though a sharp lookout was maintained.
Many were the adventures through which the chums passed; once, in the
White Pass, the whole party lost its footing when Tom slipped and
dragged them all over the edge of a small crevice in the ice; but the
mountain climber’s staff, which Bill had swiftly jammed in the ice, held
them until they could scramble up—and the steep drop where the crevice
widened just beyond was avoided.
Nicky found a wounded vicuna and tried to take the frightened little
mountain sheep with them, but it disappeared during the night and they
never knew whether one of the Andean eagles, of which they saw many, had
swept it away or if in its struggles against its tether it had lost its
footing and fallen over a precipice near the camp. Entering a cave to
shelter for the night, they once surprised some of the huge vultures,
having a feast on some frozen animal—Cliff and Nicky were badly buffeted
by their wings in an effort to escape from the cave without rolling down
a steep slide; but in time the high places were behind them and they
began to drop slowly down into the verdure of the less chilly slopes.
After days of rest and other days of travel, they found themselves close
to a wide valley, into which there seemed to be no entrance.
They were on a cliff, quite sheer in its drop to the vale beneath; but
as they stared, Nicky lifted a hand and pointed—“Look!”
Far away they saw the hidden city!