by Van Powell
CHAPTER IX AMBUSHED!
What to do next was a problem. They discussed it, breakfasting afterHuayca had been returned to camp. They had the map again; but, at thesame time, they had native carriers who had tried to slip away undercover of darkness; they had Huayca, morose, sullen, who must be guardedconstantly or released to slip away and tell the Incas of theirmovements.
The mystery of the Spaniard was cleared up: when Bill had gone to hiscamp the night before he had seen from the way the man stumbled up thathis ankle had been turned; they had stopped to let it rest or toimprovise a rude _hamaca_--the native sedan-chair or palanquin, reallymore of a stretcher.
They discussed matters from every angle but could not find a plan thatsuited them all. If they went ahead their natives might disappear withthe very things that were most necessary to their plans: if they kept aguard it would show that they were not the innocent travellers that theyclaimed they were. Of course Huayca knew the truth; but had he told theother natives? If they went on he might make their carriers turn againsthim. If they released him he would certainly go straight to the Incas,perhaps leaving the natives prepared to desert them or to lead them intosome trap and there desert them.
Their discussion had reached no end when they saw four natives coming upthe pass, carrying a roughly made litter. In it was Pizzara, theSpaniard.
"I twis' the foot," he said after he had been brought to their circleand his litter had been set down. "Thank you very much, I have eat thebreakfast."
He rolled a cigarette and they watched him without speech.
"You no fools," he declared, finally, "you know why I follow. When I wasin Senor Sander's camp one Indian come and say he pay me for go to stopletter. 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 youand 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 werenot going after gold, he denied, they were going to try to rescue awhite man held captive by Incas. They all knew, of course, Cliffthought, that it was useless to try to hoodwink the Spaniard: he knewall but the exact route. It was wiser to admit the truth.
"We will discuss your offer," John Whitley said, "perhaps we may agreeto it. We will let you know later."
The Spaniard nodded, signaled to his bearers to remove his litter butinstead of returning down the pass he was carried the other way. Theysaw why at once. His camp had been broken up and his natives, not veryheavily loaded, for he traveled light, came up the path and overtooktheir master.
"I don't know how you feel and you don't know how I feel," Bill waswhittling industriously as he spoke, "but it looks to me as though hehas shown us the way out."
"I don't see how," Nicky broke in, "if we go with him he may spoil ourplans 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 otherway," Cliff agreed, "he could be watched."
"If his natives could carry some of our things," Mr. Whitley said, "wecould discharge our own: they have not proved trustworthy."
"That is my idea," Bill nodded, "he has more muscle in his carriers thanhe is using. Shall we join forces?"
They decided to travel in company. The spokesman was Bill. He explainedto Senor Pizzara that their own bearers had tried to run away with theirsupplies; if he would let his carriers take heavier loads so they coulddischarge their own, they would agree to his plan. He was eager toaccept the proviso.
Over the swaying bridge of osier and plank that spanned a chasm theypassed as one party; their own men went the other way with just enoughfood to last until they reached the foothills.
Huayca they kept with them. He was not openly guarded but either Bill orMr. 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 promisedsolemnly that he would help them in their effort to rescue Cliff'sfather 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, massiveand awe-inspiring, lined the path. Vast chasms yawned beside the way. AsCliff expressed it, they were pygmies going through Nature's giantworkshops, where heat and frost, sun and rain, earthquake and volcanicupheaval, tore apart what had been built and threw the odds and endseverywhere.
Colder and colder grew the sharp winds as they climbed into the snowyland above the timberline.
It was to such a scene of grand and wild awesomeness that the threechums turned smarting eyes, one icy morning, as they emerged from theirtent.
Beyond their camp a great pair of twin peaks reared snowy crests intothe golden light of dawn. Through the dip between those peaks ran thesnowy pass marked in the map. They could see part of it already, fromtheir camp in the slightly depressed space they had chosen in which toavoid as much wind sweep as possible. It was a gorgeous sight. Jaggedrock, glistening white blankets of virgin snow, fire-lit at the peaks bythe approaching sunbeams, deep clefts diving into pitchy darkness, madea 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 figuresitting composedly by a roaring dry-alcohol stove over whose wind-fannedblaze 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 hisnatives and gone on alone."
"Deserted us!" cried Mr. Whitley.
"Deserted his first love for gold!" grinned Bill. "Yep! I guessed hewould, just about here."
The chums looked at him in dismay.
"Oh, he left all our supplies," Bill assured them. "Everything isintact. 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-likedepression between the peaks,--"he goes that way. We turn right aroundon 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 tobe 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 variedhis usual formula. "As for Whackey, I let him go in the deep, darknight. We don't need him any more."
It was all a puzzle and baffled the young fellows. Mr. Whitley seemed tobe deeper in Bill's confidence, for he smiled at them.
"Bill should not tease, up here in this cold place," he said. "The truthis, we are in the little cup of what must have been a high mountainlake. It is just low enough in altitude to be below the eternal ice linein summer. At present we are really camped on a vast cake of ice whichhas frozen over it since the past summer. It will stay this way untilnext year; then the ice will melt gradually and any snow that turns towater will add to the reservoir."
In centuries long gone, he explained, the Incas must have chosen this asone of their water-reservoir links. They had wonderfully perfect systemsof aqueducts as the chums knew.
"At any rate," he proceeded, "Bill is engineer enough to surmise thatthe ruined and blocked-up stone depression we saw half a mile away ispart of an old Inca 'pipe line' or aqueduct, and that this onecommunicates with others. In fact, when he came here the first time hesaw that it was possible to pretend to give up and retrace our way, andthen to dive into a sort of stone subway and go around to come outbeyond
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 chasehim! I think the worst that can happen will be that the Incas will drivehim back."
Which, in fact, was a good guess.
A week later, after they had plunged into a rock-buttressed cut andexplored its communicating cuts, always working by compass to passaround the frozen lake, they came to a place where Bill halted themwhile he climbed the jagged, crumbled side of their cut to spy out thelay of the land.
It had been no fun, that week in the cut. Packs were all exceedinglyheavy since five had to carry the loads of ten, even though depleted byweeks of travel during which the food had dwindled rapidly. So theystruggled over rock debris, up sloping walls, over obstacles, sometimesin dark tunnels for a short distance; but as Bill returned to them theyknew that it had been an effort well repaid.
"Trampled snow," he said. "Abandoned packs. Signs of a fight. Rocksdropped. Arrows stuck in the snow. I guess they turned our Spanishfriend back, and turned him quick!"
Perhaps Bill did not tell quite all he had seen; nor did the boys presshim for details.
Bill and Mr. Whitley decided that it was safe to go on; there were nosigns 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 theothers decided that they had turned back; at any rate they were not tobe seen, those Incas, though a sharp lookout was maintained.
Many were the adventures through which the chums passed; once, in theWhite Pass, the whole party lost its footing when Tom slipped anddragged them all over the edge of a small crevice in the ice; but themountain climber's staff, which Bill had swiftly jammed in the ice, heldthem until they could scramble up--and the steep drop where the crevicewidened just beyond was avoided.
Nicky found a wounded vicuna and tried to take the frightened littlemountain sheep with them, but it disappeared during the night and theynever knew whether one of the Andean eagles, of which they saw many, hadswept it away or if in its struggles against its tether it had lost itsfooting and fallen over a precipice near the camp. Entering a cave toshelter for the night, they once surprised some of the huge vultures,having a feast on some frozen animal--Cliff and Nicky were badlybuffeted by their wings in an effort to escape from the cave withoutrolling down a steep slide; but in time the high places were behind themand they began to drop slowly down into the verdure of the less chillyslopes.
After days of rest and other days of travel, they found themselves closeto 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; butas they stared, Nicky lifted a hand and pointed--"Look!"
Far away they saw the hidden city!