CHAPTER X.
THE ONE-EYED QUESAL.
Seen in the bright light of the early tropic day the plateau upon whichthe _Golden Eagle_ had settled was certainly an ideal spot for a boy’scamp. It was in form a rough circle about a quarter of a mile incircumference. To the west the mountain-side shot up in a rugged cliff.To the east a deep canyon cut down to the valley below, clothed heavilywith huge Manacca palms, plane and rosewood trees, here and thereinterspersed by a lordly mahogany grove. Huge ferns as big asrose-bushes in America shot up out of the rich dark soil, and from thetops of many of the trees whose names were unknown to the boys trailedmagnificent orchids and lianas and parasitic plants of many varieties.
From below it would have been quite impossible to have sighted the campand the mountain above was so rugged and precipitous that any attack orobservation from that quarter would have been most improbable. As soonas it was light Harry, with the collapsable canvas bucket went toFrank’s spring and got a supply of water. This done he set about gettingbreakfast. In the meantime Frank had been skirmishing about for fruit,and by the time the fragrant odor of Harry’s steaming coffee-pot haddiffused itself about the camp the elder boy returned triumphantly withan armful of bananas and dark-green bread-fruit. Harry selected two ofthe largest of these last and cutting them open set them on the hotcoals to roast.
“Why, where on earth did you learn tropical cookery?” demanded Frank ashe watched Harry deftly turning the appetizing looking slices.
“I watched the natives down at La Merced,” replied Harry, “you see Ifigured that when you are in Rome do as the Romans do, and that as thejungle is good enough to provide us with ready-grown loaves we ought toreturn the compliment by knowing how to cook them.”
Naturally enough the boys’ conversation fell on the mysteriousbell-ringing of the night before.
“I can hardly believe that I didn’t dream it,” remarked Frank.
“But I heard it too,” rejoined Harry, “and there is no question that itwas a bell and a good, loud-toned one at that.”
“Well, what a bell-ringer, let alone a bell, can be doing round here isinexplicable,” said Frank. “I took a good look around before breakfastwhile I was out getting the fruit and I can see no sign of anyhabitation or settlement that might account for it.”
“You don’t think it possible that it could be a trick to scare us?”asked Harry.
Frank laughed.
“I considered that too,” he replied, “I hardly think that it could bethat. Anyhow it will take a good deal more than that to frighten usaway. Seriously though I would like to solve the mystery.”
“Maybe the monkeys hold prayer-meetings,” laughed Harry.
“What’s the matter with forming the Chester Exploration Expedition andtaking a climb up the mountain after breakfast,” he broke out suddenly.
“You’re on,” rejoined Frank, “I think it will be perfectly safe to leavecamp for a while anyhow and we may make some important discoveries.”
Accordingly an hour later the boys were making their first plunge intothe practically unknown fastnesses of the Cordilleras of Nicaragua. Eachcarried a canteen full of water, a supply of roasted bread-fruit andseveral soup tablets besides matches in waterproof boxes and theirrevolvers and rifles. Of course a pair of field-glasses, and the axealso formed a part of their traveling equipment.
With all this paraphernalia it was hard work clambering up the ruggedmountain-side more particularly as when their course required them toplunge into the jungle, they found their way impeded by huge snake-likecreepers that hung from the trees and crawled over the ground in everydirection. They had been climbing steadily for about an hour when Harryuttered an exclamation of delightful surprise.
“Look, Frank,” he cried, pointing to a magnificent bird that flashedthrough the jungle ahead of them. Both boys gazed admiringly at themarvelous splendor of its plumage. It was about the size of an eagle andits back was covered with a shimmering glossy mantle, so to speak, ofemerald green. Its waistcoat was of a deep rich carmine and its longcurved beak a bright yellow.
“Why,” cried Frank as, with a harsh unmusical cry, the bird vanished,“that’s a quesal.”
“A quesal?” demanded Harry much mystified.
“Yes, I was reading about them in that book on Nicaragua I got to readon our voyage down here,” rejoined Frank.
“They were the sacred birds of the ancient Toltecs who decorated theirtemples and religious houses with pictures of them,” he went on. “To layhands on them meant death to the sacrilegious person so doing and thepriests used to have great colonies of them in the groves round theirtemples.”
“You are as good as an encyclopedia, Frank,” laughed Harry, “I’d like toget a shot at one of them, Toltecs or no Toltecs. Or better still tohave one alive. Just think what they’d say at home if we brought oneback in a cage.”
Frank smiled.
“I’m afraid, Harry,” he said, “that even if we did catch one we could donothing like you propose with it. A peculiarity of the quesal is that itwill not live in captivity. Not even an hour it is said. The human touchkills them immediately.”
The boys steadily pushed forward, although as the sun climbed higher theheat of the dense tropical forest that covered the mountain-side at thepoint they had now reached became most oppressive. Suddenly there was aloud grunting sound from a few feet ahead and a herd of small brownanimals dashed away. Not before Harry, however, had got his rifle to hisshoulder and brought one of them down with a skilful shot.
“A wild pig,” he announced triumphantly, turning over the animal he hadbrought down with his foot. Compared to a domestic porker the wild swinedidn’t look much bigger than rabbits, but the boys hailed the one Harryhad shot as a welcome addition to their larder.
“If we only had some apple sauce,” sighed the epicurean Harry.
“Why don’t you wish for mustard?” laughed Frank.
Harry’s pig weighed about thirty-five pounds, and so he carried itwithout much effort over his shoulder till they reached a clear space onthe mountain-side, where they could cache it and easily find it on theirway down.
“Now, if only no ocelots or jaguars come around we’ll have roast porkfor supper to-night,” he remarked as he laid down his burden.
“I’ll show you how to fix that,” said Frank. With a few blows of his axehe lopped off some low branches from a near-by tree, and placed them ina circle round the carcass.
“That’s a dodge, Blakely told me about,” he announced when he hadfinished. “Any animal thief that happens along wouldn’t touch that pignow for the world. They see the branches and figure out that it is somekind of a trap.”
From time to time as the boys mounted higher, they stopped and carefullyturned their glasses on the valley below. Somewhere in its apparentlyuninhabited sweep they knew that Rogero and his army and Estrada’stroops were maneuvering, but nothing that they could see gave them anyinkling as to the exact whereabouts of the troops.
“We shall have to make a scouting trip in the _Golden Eagle_,” saidFrank with determination, as after they had scoured the valley for thetwentieth time, they admitted that it was hardly worth the trouble.
“Yes,” agreed Harry eagerly, “and the sooner the better.”
They stopped for lunch shortly after noon, without having made anyprogress in discovering anything about the mysterious bell or who itsringer could have been. Although Frank’s pedometer showed that they hadcovered several miles, they had not even come across the semblance of afootpath or any other indication that they were not the first humanbeings to explore the mountain-side. Lunch despatched they agreed toproceed as far as a battlemented cliff that shot sheer up ahead of themfor two hundred feet or more, cutting off any view of the mountain-top,and then turn back. If they had found nothing by that time to throw anylight on the bell-ringer or the instrument on which he performed, theydecided that it would be waste of time to keep on.
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At the foot of the cliff its beetling height was even more impressivethan when seen at a distance. It shot up, naked of tree or bush, like ahuge wall. There was not foothold for even a mountain goat on its smoothgleaming surface.
“Well,” said Frank, as the boys gazed up to where its summit seemed totouch the blue sky, “here is where we stop short. Not even a fly couldget up that.”
As he spoke, Harry who had been poking at the smooth surface of theobstruction with the axe, gave a sharp exclamation.
“Did you say that the quesal was the sacred bird of the Toltecs?” hedemanded in a tone of suppressed excitement.
“Yes,” replied Frank. “Why?”
“Why?” repeated Harry, “just look up there and tell me what you make ofthat?”
He pointed to some half-obliterated markings on the surface of the cliffabout thirty feet above where the boys stood. There was no doubt aboutit—the markings, though dimmed by time and in places almost obliteratedaltogether, unquestionably formed a rude exaggerated outline of the birdthey had seen that morning.
“Well, what do you think of it, Frank?” demanded Harry impatiently,after his elder brother had gazed at the spot for some time.
“Simply this,” replied Frank calmly, though his heart beat faster, “thatwe are very near some sort of Toltec temple, or ruin or even the lostmines themselves!”
The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents Page 11