THE MYSTERIOUS TRAIL
That figure stood there many minutes, almost immobile, like a
tree-stump. Then, when I saw that black mass of ship out on the sea
begin to move, the figure stooped, took some bulky thing from the ground
and started off inland.
We followed cautiously--ah, how cautiously! It was a ticklish period of
our business. The rustling in the brush ahead, now and then, told us how
he went.
Near two miles that figure led us thus. And then came a halt on the
shore of Crow Bay. We could hear him in the water, into which he waded.
And we crawled close, and made out he was tugging at something on the
bottom.
In a little, he had dragged a canoe onto the shore, and with some labor
he turned out the water. I could hear him mumbling to himself, and
chuckling, as it seemed, while he took up his burden and set it in the
canoe. That sound of his voice with its unpleasing quality settled his
identity for me. It was Duran.
He sat himself in the little boat, and pushing with a paddle, moved off
from shore.
"We've got to follow close," I whispered to my comrades. "Robert, you
better stay, and Carlos and I will try swimming for it. If I send for
you, leave a note on the top of the hill."
I removed my shoes while I talked, and Carlos and I waded in. The water
was shallow, and we pushed along with some rapidity, digging our toes
into the sandy bottom. We came, in time, to deeper water, and swam a
short way, then touched bottom again. And presently we came up on a
piece of beach and sprinted round a tongue of land. This brought our
quarry within view again. So, though we lost sight of him when again we
were obliged to enter the water and cross another broad bayou, a second
and longer run on the beach, round a broader tongue of land, gave us his
view once more.
One more swim for it, and we came up in time to see Duran paddling into
an inlet, or bayou, in the south shore of Crow Bay. By this time the
moon had risen. But its light served only to show us the extent of the
marshy place we were in, among the tall reeds. Progress was impossible,
except by way of the shallow water of the inlet, for there was no beach
here.
Wading, we continued on the trail, though the canoe was beyond our view.
We had gone thus, in the bayou, some little way, when we noted, in the
dim moonlight, the place where the canoe had been dragged in among the
reeds. And close by was the beginning of a path, and the ground was
solid; and heavy, bushy growth replaced the grasses.
We now ran forward, hoping to sight Duran before he should come to some
turning and be lost to us. We went thus, miles it seemed, and the path
took us, in time, out of the open and into the forest. Here the feel of
our bare feet on the path was our only guide. The forest ended, and we
came out into a glade; still there was no sign of him we followed.
Carlos stooped to the ground, pushing aside the grasses that lined the
trail. With eyes and fingers employed together he sought for marks.
"Yes," he said at last, "he go here."
And so we pushed on, the trail soon taking us into another piece of
forest growth. But our path came to an abrupt end at the bank of a
stream. And here some rays of moonlight, coming in through interstices
of the green canopy, showed fresh marks of some one having gone into the
water. We hesitated but a few moments, and stepped into that cool
stream, following up its course a hundred yards.
It was then we came, of necessity, to a final stand. Before us towered,
for hundreds of feet, sheer cliffs of rock. The stream came pouring out
of a hole at the foot. The waters, where they made their exit from the
earth, were divided by a large rock. That part on the left rolled out in
a smooth flood. On the right of the rock the water came over a ledge, to
tumble down in a thin cascade of three feet in height.
The light of the moon came more and more into that space among the
trees; and we examined the banks for marks of the way Duran had gone.
Within two hours day broke; and, retracing our steps, we went back to
where that trail entered the stream, and we carefully searched both
banks all up and down for traces. But nowhere was there a mark of any
kind to show where he we sought had left the water.
"Well," I said at last to Carlos, "he might soon be coming back this
way; so we'll have to watch. If I stay here do you think that you and
Robert can carry our boat across the neck of land into Crow Bay?"
"Yes," said Carlos, "that not so very hard. The boat light."
"Well, then," I said, "suppose you go back, and you and Robert get the
boat into the bay, and hide it in the reeds somewhere near where Duran
hid his canoe. But tell Robert to leave a note on the top of the hill,
telling our friends on the _Pearl_ to wait there to hear from us."
"Yes," returned Carlos, "I do that."
But I got an hour's sleep before Carlos was started on the back trail,
and then settled down in a nest of brush on the stream's bank, to watch
for the possible return of Duran.
Over my head, and almost meeting the trees of the opposite bank of the
stream, were the tree-tops, through which the rays of the morning sun
were now creeping. The lianas hung all about; birds glided from limb to
limb. And there, on my right, was that high wall of cliffs, and the
water gushing out of the rocks. The splashing of the little cascade on
the rocks overwhelmed other sounds, of insects and birds.
I thought long on the curious disappearance of Duran, leaving no trace
to point the way he had gone. I looked at that rock wall and wondered if
perhaps he could have had a rope ladder hanging there, up which he had
gone, pulling it after him. I had read of such things. But the cliff was
too high, and there was no landing-place on that sheer wall that would
have given foothold even to a mountain goat. It was very certain that he
could not have climbed from the water out on the bank anywhere above
that spot where his path went into the stream, without leaving
unmistakable marks on the ground. So that the only surmise left me was
that he had waded down the stream, and climbed out on the opposite bank.
When Carlos and Robert should come we would see. But it was chagrining
to have followed Duran so far, and then to have lost him just when we
had reason to believe we were coming near to the hidden mine.