A flier was an unusual sight here and the inquisitive inhabitants, men,
women and children, crowded around to get a glimpse at the wonderful
machine.
There was nothing resembling a hostelry in the village; but, when the
worthy Señor Hernando Diaz, its richest citizen, learned that these
young men were soldiers like his own three sons who were fighting
against the Asiatics in Argentina, he offered his hospitality.
After the evening meal Señor Diaz and his guests repaired to a broad
veranda which faced west. For quite a time the three men remained
silent. Pelton and Calhoun were absorbed in the grandeur of the
mountains over which dusk was settling, and Hernando Diaz knew too well
the power of silence and the spell of that majestic sight, to break it
with words.
At length Calhoun murmured musingly: "God is up there--God and Peace.
Even war couldn't disturb the eternal serenity of those Andes."
He spoke in Spanish. Both Calhoun and Pelton had a fairly complete
mastery of that language.
Diaz leaned far forward in his chair: "God in those mountains, Señor?
Ah, yes, perhaps in the great peaks far off; but do you see that one
which is quite near? It is less than two thousand meters high and at
its summit there is a small depression or crater. Madre de Dios--there
indeed is the lair of Satan!"
A quizzical smile came over Calhoun's lips. He turned toward the
Ecuadorian: "I'm afraid the gentleman you mention has gone north to
help with the big row up there. But let's hear the rest of what you
were going to say. I'm intensely interested and I think that Joe is
perfectly willing to listen too."
"There is a legend about 'The Devil's Nest' which says that in ancient
times the Indians made human sacrifices to the sun there," Diaz began
in a low voice, while he toyed nervously with the ends of his curling
mustache: "Certainly there is something dreadful about the place still,
but no one knows what. In the memory of living men, only two have
ventured into it. That was ten years ago. A certain youth named Pedro
Menendez was driven by the spirit of adventure, which is the inherent
possession of most boys, to scale the heights of 'The Devil's Nest.' He
failed to return. Three days later his father ventured up the walls of
the extinct volcano in search of him. No human eye has seen either of
them since. Truly, it was as though Satan had swallowed up both."
"Men have gone up into mountains before, and failed to return," said
Pelton: "There are places where footing is precarious, and crevices in
which it would be almost impossible to find a human body. However, we
have a little mystery here to solve--George, what do you say if we take
a trip to 'The Devil's Nest' tomorrow?"
"Bully enough, old egg," returned Calhoun laughingly: "We've faced
devils before, haven't we? They were real devils hurtling at us from
out of the sky and shooting streams of poisoned lead dangerously close
to our gills. They will probably get us anyway in a week or two and, if
we get killed in the mountains, we will at least have the satisfaction
of cheating them."
Seeing that argument was useless against such reckless hot-heads, their
host merely muttered softly to himself: "They are rash--these soldiers
of the United States."
The last pale light had faded from above the peaks of the Andes, a
faint wind soughed through the trees. The conversation drifted to other
topics.