John Whitley stared, as did Nicky and Tom. Was this new acquaintance as much on their side as he claimed to be?
“Wasn’t that the same boy you saw?” John Whitley inquired.
“It was, sir,” Nicky answered. “He had a bright yellow thing-umjig on his head.”
Bill whittled one side of his stick to satiny smoothness. “Now I don’t know your mind and you don’t know mine,” he said, “But——”
“Wait!” broke in Cliff. “You dropped that quipu into your left hand pocket, Bill. I think—I’m sure—I saw you take what you gave him out of the other side of your coat.”
Bill grinned approval. “Right as can be,” he agreed. “I had picked up an old quipu in my diggings to show you fellows and that’s the one I gave him.” He showed them the other one, still where he had dropped it in his pocket. “He’s taking—to whoever he’s sent to find—a quipu that has a history or record of how a great sky god, or courtier of the Sun-god that they worship—of how this Chasca came to earth and brought great peace and prosperity to the Inca people.”
“Why, that fits in with my plan!” exclaimed Cliff.
“So it does,” said Mr. Whitley.
They had a long discussion. Bill told them that he “figured” that the Indian who had been with the Spaniard had been sent out from the hidden city to try and prevent the letter from being delivered.
“They must have learned about it,” he said, “and guess they tried to stop it. Then, when they failed, they let us come on down here, where we are, in a way of speaking, right in their hands——”
“That means that Cuzco is as far as our young chums will go,” said Mr. Whitley seriously. The youthful faces became downcast. “I promised not to take you into danger,” continued their Captain, as Bill named him, “and so Cuzco will be your stopping place.” There was no argument. The Captain’s word was law.
But events were to compel a change in Mr. Whitley’s ideas.
CHAPTER V
THE CHUMS SHOW THEIR METTLE
In Cuzco, while final plans were made and supplies were being assembled, the chums were free, for several days, to explore. Bill had shown them their map, which he had kept out of Mr. Grey’s note when he coaxed the eaglet to his camp. The map did not mean much to them, but to Bill, who had already gone alone over the passes to be sure there was a hidden city, the map was quite clear. They would go on foot over the mountains, he said. It was safer than by muleback: some of the passes were quite narrow and dangerous, although he could show the best ones to them.
The chums were rather depressed that they could not accompany Mr. Whitley and Bill: however they agreed to make the best of it, and with the naturally buoyant spirits of youths in a new place they went about and had a fine time.
One of the people they met was a youth, quite near their own ages. He spoke a little English and acted as their guide.
None of them, nor their older companions, suspected his real purpose, but it was divulged, one day, as they were in a meaner quarter of the city where some of the natives of Peru, degraded and listless remains of a once noble race, had their poor homes.
“Come—here—I show—how I live!” said their young guide. They all followed him into a low room in an old building, squat and roughly built of a composition something like the adobe of the Mexicans.
But once they were inside they turned in dismay. The youth was not alone with them: three fierce looking half-caste men, part Inca, part Spanish, rose from a dark corner: one slammed the rude door and fastened it. “Now,” he said, “you stay here.”
“What’s the big idea?” demanded Nicky hotly, relapsing into slang in his excitement.
“You see!” said the man. He and his companions held a low-voiced conference and then one of them rose and was gone: his malevolent looking friends gave the door a vicious slam and shot its bolt.
“What are you going to do with us?” demanded Tom.
“We keep you. When that tall one—” he meant Mr. Whitley,”—start for Lima once more, we let you go!”
“You daren’t!” cried Nicky, and made a dash for the window. But Tom and Cliff restrained him.
“We’ll have the police—or whatever they’re got here!” Nicky said. He gave a shout. But one of the men advanced with a very threatening gesture.
“Keep quiet,” Tom urged and Cliff added, “we’re in a strange place.” He counseled, “We have to keep our heads. We’ll find a way out but not by making a disturbance. We don’t know these men or this part of town: we don’t know the customs they have. If we keep quiet they may let us go or relax their guard.”
“But then our trip’s ruined!” argued Nicky.
“Yes,” said Cliff, morosely, “and my father is the worst sufferer if he is still alive. But we are trapped. We must do our best to get out of it before they send that man to Mr. Whitley.”
“He’s already gone,” grumbled Nicky.
“No he isn’t. He’s just outside. I see him through the window. He’s rolling a cigarette out there by a post.”
“He’s waiting for someone,” said Tom, “I see him.”
“Tom,” whispered Nicky, “your uncle gave you a pistol, didn’t he? Have you got it? Let’s shoot our way out!”
That was Nicky all over! He was excitable and quick. He knew that Tom had been trusted to carry a light .22-caliber revolver given him by his uncle, because Tom had a cool head and would not abuse the possession. It was more for signalling, than for a fight.
“Easy, Nicky!” counseled Tom, “We don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“No,” chimed in Cliff, “we’re outnumbered and we don’t know how dangerous this neighborhood may be. Besides, if we do anything to get into police courts it will make us tell what we are going to do and that will upset all Mr. Whitley’s plans.”
“They’re upset already,” Nicky grumbled, “That man’s gone——”
“No he isn’t,” Tom replied, “He’s waiting outside, by a post—I can see him through the window. There! Why—I believe the very same Indian we saw by the temple is giving him money!”
“Yes—I’m sure it’s the same one,” Cliff said, “He’s coming in.”
The tall Indian, or Inca noble, for he was really that, was admitted. The two waiting men stretched out eager hands.
“We get them,” said one, “You pay. We go.” Then he remembered that he spoke a half-halting English, and repeated it in dialect.
The Indian paid them some money and the two men, as if glad to be away, left quickly. The boy came in, acting shamefaced, but trying to look cheerful. He, too, stretched out a hand.
“Now—if only we had some way to take these two by surprise,” began Tom.
“Sh-h-h!” warned Nicky, “They’ll hear you.”
Cliff reminded him that the Indian had not understood the half-breeds when one spoke in English, and that the boy had to stop and translate. He spoke in low, eager tones.
“Nicky, what did you do with that little box of magnesium powder you took out of the supplies this morning? You were going to try to take a daylight kodak picture inside a temple by flashlight. If you had it, now——”
“I have,” Nicky whispered, “but——”
“Listen. Here’s a plan. It may work. It would play on the superstitions of these fellows. They are both natives and I don’t think either one has seen a flashlight, or an electric torch. If we could make them think we were powerful magicians and could burn them, they might be scared enough to be off guard——”
“It’s an idea!” exulted Tom, “I have that small burning glass, Cliff—suppose I got to the window, and set the burning glass so it focuses, while the man is paying the boy. Then——” That was Cliff’s idea, too. Tom moved quietly over and pretended to look out of the window. Really, he was adjusting a small lens, hidden by his hand on the stone window ledge, so it focused the sun rays in one spot. On Cliff’s instructions Nicky maneuvered his body to help conceal the tiny lens from the sight of the others. Tom opened the flash powder box, a small, single charge of magnesium powder which, when ignited, makes a great white flash and a big puff of smoke, but is not dangerous.
The boy turned from being paid.
“Listen,” Cliff commanded, “You—tell—that—man—” he spoke slowly and impressively, “—we—are—going—away—from—here. If—he—tries—to—stop—us, we—will—burn—him—up!”
The boy stared. Cliff repeated his words. The boy, mystified, translated. The man laughed scornfully. Cliff drew a small pocket electric flashlamp into view. In a dark corner he played the rays while the natives stared. Then, suddenly, he pointed a dramatic finger at the tiny box on the window ledge. The natives stared at it curiously, not knowing what to expect.
“Tell—him—we—burn—that—box—to—show—what happen—to you—if—you—stop us!” Cliff said with a bold and threatening expression. The boy spoke in dialect and both seemed unable to take their eyes off the box.
Cliff made a sign to Tom who pushed the small box into the focus of the lens which Nicky screened from the natives’ view. Cliff pressed his light switch, and pointed the ray with a few signs of his free hand.
Nothing happened!
The man laughed and the boy snickered. Nicky began to feel weak and cold; but Cliff stood his ground.
Then, so suddenly as to startle even Nicky, the focused rays ignited the powder: there was a dull “boop!” and a blinding glare.
Before the smoke had risen and began to spread Cliff whispered, “Now—make for the door!”
Holding the flashlight pointed at the boy until the latter cowered back against the man, Cliff led his chums to the door. He fumbled with the catch: the man made a move as if to grapple with him but Cliff threw the ray into his eyes and he flung up his arm, instinctive fear of something not understood overcoming his wit. Cliff unfastened the clumsy catch, the chums fled to the street and were off like young gazelles.
“They’ll find the lens!” Nicky panted.
“What do we care?” demanded Tom, “They won’t get us!”
Of course all plans had to be altered; the youths could not be left behind. They were glad that in trying to prevent the expedition the Indian had only made their part in it certain.
On a fine evening, with all the natives engaged, and with all supplies packed, and with their course through the mountains carefully determined, they went to sleep for the last time in a civilized hotel—if the mean accommodations of the place they had selected could be called “civilized.” Mr. Whitley’s Lima friend had not proved a very good adviser. However, bright and early the next clear, temperate day—for Cuzco was not in the hotter lowlands where tropical heat was fiercest—they began their real adventure.
Bill and Mr. Whitley were in advance: then came the natives, laden with quite heavy packs, under which they toiled along on an ever ascending slope, singing native chants and talking in their unintelligible jargon. Behind them came the Mystery Boys, also laden with packs containing personal things and articles they wished to protect from prying eyes.
“We’re on our way,” they told each other and felt like capering at the certainty that in trying to frustrate their plans the Indian had made it possible for them to go along.
Up in the hills a tall, well built Indian stood with several companions, watching the lower passes.
One day, as the comrades toiled along, entering the real mountains, the vigilant watcher turned toward his companions.
“Brother, they come!” he said.
“They come—yes,” agreed his nearest aide, a noble of the old and almost extinct true-blooded Incas, “They come—yes.”
He made a meaning gesture.
“But—they will not come back!”
That same day Cliff borrowed Bill’s field glasses and focused them on a small band, toiling along far behind them.
“I think we’re being followed—I’ve noticed that group several times,” he told the older members of their party.
They agreed, and frequently thereafter the followers were observed, but always too far behind to enable the chums to guess their identity. Was it the Spaniard? Was it the Indian?
Many days passed and they were well in the high cliffs before they learned the truth!
CHAPTER VI
A NEW MYSTERY DEVELOPS
Quichua, the almost universal dialect which the Incas had introduced into Peru as they conquered its tribes, was quite well understood by Bill Sanders. He spent much time on their daily marches, and in camp, teaching it to John Whitley and the three chums. It was the language that the hidden city’s inhabitants would be most apt to understand, he believed.
When they had learned that a “chasqui” was a runner or messenger; that Cuzco, the name of the principal city and hub of the old empire was so called because the word meant navel, the center of the body; and many other things such as that “Pelu” meant river and was thought by some to have been the word that gave the Spaniards their name for the nation—Peru!—they began to study brief sentences and after a while could hold short and simple conversations together.
In return they taught Mr. Whitley and Bill the secret ways of exchanging ideas in the signals of their order. After some discussion and hesitation Bill was made a member of The Mystery Boys and although the chums debated the good sense of letting him know all their signs, they finally gave them to him—and as events proved, they were to be glad they had done so.
In camp Cliff and his friends spent a great deal of time studying the rude map: because Quipu Bill had some misgivings about letting the only guide they had become damaged or lost, Tom, who was quite a draftsman, made a very good copy which they used and over which they watched jealously so that the natives would not discover what it was.
The small party—not more than eight—which had been following them hung on like wolves on the flank of a buck: when Bill hurried along the others kept the same distance, when his party lagged the others dallied also.
“I think it is either the Indian, or the Spaniard, or both of them,” said Bill, “They know—at least the Spaniard does—that there was a map, for he was in camp when I caught the eaglet.” But the other party kept just too far behind for them to see, even with fine glasses, just who comprised the group.
Then, one afternoon, Cliff looked down from a high point and called to Bill.
“Bill—get out your field glasses. I don’t see that party anywhere below.” Bill looked. John Whitley and the youths took their turns. But there was no sign of pursuit.
“We must have lost them,” Nicky said.
“But we have been on a straight road all day,” Mr. Whitley objected. “No. Either they have dropped too far behind for us to see them at all, or they have given it up——”
“Or they have turned into some side pass, thinking that can get around us in some way,” Bill added, “But they won’t. I guess we have lost them for good.”
They all felt rather glad of it. There had been some fun in the game of hare and hounds at first, but after a few days the continual watching became wearisome and perhaps worrisome. Their natives noticed it, for one thing, and they did not want the Peruvians to think their story of an engineering and educational trip was a ruse. They all breathed more freely that night as they made camp.
But Cliff kept wondering why the pursuit had stopped.
That night—and it was cold for they were very high up in the levels just a little below snow level—he lay rolled in his blanket, in the tent the chums shared, thinking about it.
“Cliff,” Tom’s voice whispered through the dark, “Are you asleep?”
“No,” Cliff answered under his breath. But he need not have been so cautious. Nicky was not asleep, either: and he declared the fact promptly.
“I’m awake too. Is it to be a session of the Inner Circle?”
“Maybe,” Tom replied, “I was going to ask Cliff if he noticed that Indian that Bill calls Whackey—the one whose name is Huayca?”
“Notice him? Notice what about him?” Nicky demanded.
“He kept dropping back from one carrier to the next one, right along the line, today.”
“Yes,” Cliff said, “I saw him. He talked to each one for a few minutes, then he dropped behind and talked to the next one.”
“What do you suppose it meant?” Nicky wondered. “Nothing, I guess. I have seen him do it before.”
“You have?” Cliff and Tom asked it at one instant.
“Certainly. But he is the boss isn’t he? He has to give orders.”
“When he gives orders he yells them out so that we all hear him,” Tom objected.
“In the morning,” Cliff said, “Let’s ask Mr. Whitley and Bill if they have noticed.” They agreed and discussed the curious disappearance of the trailing party for a while.
Then, suddenly, Cliff hissed under his breath, “Sh-h-h-h!”
They became alert, intent: they listened with straining ears.
“It was only some pebbles—a little landslide,” Nicky whispered. “They do that in the mountains. I saw some pebbles slip this afternoon.”
Nevertheless Cliff gently crawled out of his blanket and his head came in rather vigorous contact with Tom’s cranium for he was doing the same thing. They forgot the bump in the excitement for more pebbles were clattering at a little distance.
Cliff and Tom unhooked their tent flap and without widening its opening much, looked into the dim, starlit night.
Nicky pushed his face between them. Each felt that the others were tense, Nicky was trembling a little. They stared and listened.
From a greater distance came the crackle of a broken twig.
Without a word Cliff pushed into the open and stared around. Then he saw figures, silent, drifting like spectres through the night, shadows with lumpy heads.
At first he almost cried out at a touch on his arm but in the instant that he controlled his impulse he realized that it came from Nicky’s grip on his arm.
“It’s Indians!” Nicky gasped.
“Yes,” said Tom, at his side; then he added in a puzzled way, “But they are going away from us.”
“It’s our Indians——” Cliff said, “They’re running away. Hey!” he shouted, then, poised to race after them, he called to his comrades to waken Bill and Mr. Whitley; but they were already awake and emerging dazedly from their tent as Cliff thrust the ground behind him with racing feet, in hot pursuit of figures now making no effort to be quiet as they galloped away.
It was a hazardous pursuit in the dark and on a strange mountain path; but Cliff had observed, as was his habit, while they climbed earlier in the day: he knew when to swerve to avoid a heavy boulder, he seemed to avoid by instinct the more pebbled and slippery parts.
While Nicky and Tom, after shouting the news, pounded in pursuit he overtook the hindmost runner.
“Stop—you!” he shouted. The man swerved. Cliff made a tackle. The man tripped, was down. Instantly Cliff was erect again and racing on while Tom caught up with the man already scrambling to his feet and held him until Nicky arrived.
Then, from behind them, Bill, in the dialect, yelled a call to halt to the natives. Cliff reached his second man and put a hand on his arm. From behind came the flash of Quipu Bill’s rifle, fired into the air over the runners’ heads.
They stopped, uncertainly, and Cliff, racing down the path, took advantage of the interval to get to a point where he could at least try to “bluff” and hold the men.
The natives clustered in a little knot. They had bundles on their heads—probably most of the camp food and supplies. Cliff shouted to them to stand while Mr. Whitley and Bill made a scrambling, awkward, but rapid approach.
“Running out at night with our grub, eh?” Bill snapped, “You hombres about face and back to camp!” He translated into dialect and they sullenly obeyed for he still carried his rifle.
“All of ’em here?” he asked Mr. Whitley, “it’s so dark——”
“The fellow you call Whackey isn’t!” Cliff cried. Then a queer misgiving assailed him. He rushed to Bill and whispered. Bill, bent to hear, stiffened.
“Glory-gosh!” he gasped, “Go and see. In my coat pocket!”
They herded their morose captives back to camp while Cliff made his hasty retreat and a thorough but equally hurried examination in certain places.
He met Bill, approaching anxiously with John Whitley.
“It’s gone—the map’s gone!” he gasped.
“So that’s why the other party stopped following. That’s why Whackey isn’t around!” exclaimed the chief of the party.
“I saw him, today,” Nicky cried, and explained, “Tom did, too.”
“Planned to cut away during the night,” Bill snapped, “Guess he planned deeper, too: I think he expected these natives to make enough noise to be caught—that gave him a chance to get the map. I wondered why he watched me so closely, last couple of days.”
“Well, never mind,” Mr. Whitley counseled, “He and the others he went to join cannot get there ahead of us. Bill knows the passes.”
“All but one place after we get back to the snowy pass,” Bill objected, “Cliff’s pa only drew it rough and indicated the one right way—the way he took; but I know there’s a regular slather of cross cuts and paths between the cliffs up there. It’s all torn up by some earthquake long ago. I’d need the map there!”
“Well, we have the copy Tom made—” but Mr. Whitley stopped, arrested by Cliff’s clutch on his arm. Flashlights trained, the five, with a solemn warning to the natives, who seemed not to know what to do and so were for the time in no danger of mischief, hurried into Cliff’s tent. They flicked their lights around but Cliff, catching one from Nicky, trained it on the ground cloth.
Tiny fragments of paper, too fine ever to match together, littered the cloth under Tom’s little writing case!
CHAPTER VII
CLIFF TRIES A RUSE
When Quipu Bill questioned the Peruvians they remained sullenly wordless. What he called the vanished Whackey was, fortunately, expressed in Spanish; otherwise it would have called for reproof from Mr. Whitley.
“What are you going to do?” John Whitley asked as Bill threw a fresh shell into the magazine of his rifle and offered the weapon to him.
“You stand guard till dawn,” Bill replied, “Don’t let one of these hombres leave. The rifle is only to scare them—I don’t expect you to use it. I’m going after that Whackey and get that map back.”
Tom, who had been very thoughtful, spoke up.
“Are you certain that you can trail him?” he asked.
Bill grinned in the light of their rekindled campfire. “He may go a roundabout way,” he stated, “But he is bound to end up at the Spaniard’s camp. That’s where I’ll go. I can locate it. That party must be somewhere behind us, maybe in a cut that’s out of sight of the main pass.”
“What Tom is thinking is that it might not be the Spaniard’s party, I believe,” Cliff said. Tom nodded.
“There is the man—or the men—that runner was sent to find,” Tom suggested.
“That is so,” said Mr. Whitley, “How can you know which party is behind this affair?”
“I don’t,” Bill admitted, “But the Spaniard’s crowd stopped dogging us just before this happened.”
“Perhaps his natives have started trouble—or deserted,” Mr. Whitley hinted.
“I think the Spaniard would have told Whackey to take both maps,” Nicky said, “It would take less time to grab a paper than to stand and tear it to pieces.”
“Maybe Whackey did that on his own inspiration,” Bill said.
“Then the evidence points more toward the Incas than toward the Spaniard,” Cliff urged, “The Spaniard is cunning enough not to leave anything to be decided by Whackey.”
Bill began to whittle on a stick, thinking. He nodded.
“You may be right,” he agreed, “We must find out which party has the map. If it is the Spaniard we can hide and let him pass and then trail him; but if it is the other side, then we must either take a long chance at finding the one right path or else we must give up the trip.”
Cliff thought of his father. Perhaps he was still alive; unless they completed their plans he might never know.
“Probably we will have to give up,” said Mr. Whitley, “There are so many menacing things: I promised the relatives of our younger members——”
“We can at least be sure which side has the map,” said Cliff, “Before we do give up.”
“How can we find out?” asked Nicky eagerly.
Cliff explained a plan he had worked out. It was very simple, so simple that Bill poked fun at himself because he had not worked it out himself. He agreed, as did Mr. Whitley, that it was worth trying.
Carrying out the scheme, Bill called the natives.
“You tried to run away,” he told them, “We don’t want you now. We cannot trust you. Take food enough to get to your homes, or at least enough to get out of the mountains. And go.”
To their surprise the natives protested.
“Not so,” said the spokesman, “We not try run away. We do all to make you follow us while Huayca do what he plan.”
“What did he plan?”
“That we not know. We must do that way. That all we know.”
“I see the scheme, I think,” Mr. Whitley told Bill, “Huayca made the natives pretend to be stealing the food, so that our attention would be concentrated on them while he took the map. It does not seem logical to me that natives as clever as these would make enough noise to attract attention otherwise.”
“We not like to run away. You not pay us yet,” said a native.
So they knew no more than before. But Cliff was not discouraged. “Now we must try the second part of my plan,” he pleaded. Mr. Whitley sanctioned it, cautioning the youths to take no needless chances in the event of possible trouble. He remained with Bill’s rifle, out of the direct glow of the fire, his eyes watchful, although the natives seemed content to lie down for sleep.
Cliff, Nicky, Tom and Bill made final plans and then drifted quietly away from camp, down the mountain pass.
“He has had time to get there—Whackey has,” Tom whispered.
Bill agreed and no further conversation was used. For hours they moved like flitting ghosts, avoiding noise as much as they could.
In time Bill held out an arm against which, in turn, they came to a stop. He pointed to a very faint flicker that showed on a rock at the mouth of a narrow diverging break in the cliff. For an instant the flare of a bit of wood showed, then it died.
Its brief reflection on the rock showed them the location within the cleft of the hidden company: at least, it proved that someone was there with a fire; the deduction that followed was almost sure to be right. No one else was likely to be there.
When Bill came back, after a long silence, he had made a scouting trip into the cleft and in a whisper reported to the trio of chums that the camp was there. Final plans were made and Bill crept away again. Cliff held his radium dialed watch so that all three could watch the slow minutes crawl away.
It became a matter of seconds before they could act. And how the seconds dragged! But finally the hands touched an agreed point. “Now!” said Cliff.
They gathered hands full of pebbles and moved into the mouth of the cleft which they had not dared enter before for fear of making some noise that would disturb the camp. Now noise was their very purpose!
All together, at Cliff’s word, as they saw the dull embers of the dying campfire, sole proof of the camp’s existence, they shouted wildly, with all their lungs. At the same time there was a shower of pebbles, thrown wildly but toward and beyond the fire. Then they rushed closer, screeching, yelling, howling.
Excited, frightened cries greeted the surprise attack.
Then, like a beam of white fire, the flare of Bill’s flashlight cut into the opened flap of a tent, the only one in camp. Guttural, surprised Spanish came from within.
Running feet and terrified cries proved that the surprise had demoralized the natives and put them to flight. But hardly had the flash cut into the darkness than it was out and Cliff, seeing it disappear, urged his comrades to retreat with him; their purpose was accomplished and they must be gone before the Spaniard could organize pursuit.
“I found him sound asleep when I threw the light on him,” Bill said as they hurried back up the pass. “He was so dazzled by the light I know he didn’t recognize me, with all the noise to muddle up his mind.”
“Then he has no map,” Cliff declared. “When he is surprised and can’t take time to exercise his willpower a man does things by instinct; I read a lot about that in a book. If a man has something very valuable and he thinks—or doesn’t have time to think—there is any sudden threat to its safety, he makes a grab for it.”
“Well,” Bill told them, “Our ‘friend’ Sancho Pizzara, was sound asleep and when I woke him up, with noise and excitement, he reached for his Crucifix. So, you see, he did not have the map stolen—unless Whackey failed to get there.”
“This Sancho man would be awake—waiting,” Tom objected.
“With his gun ready and—and everything!” Nicky added.
When they reported to Mr. Whitley he agreed that they had fixed the theft of the map and its destination. The Incas!
“That ends our trip,” he declared, “I cannot risk our lads in such dangerous affairs.”
Cliff did not argue; that was not his nature. He did not remind Mr. Whitley that the plan suggested by Cliff before they started and for which certain materials had been packed, would not be likely to incur any danger. He simply sat still and watched Nicky and Tom show their disappointment.
But when the camp was once more quiet, if not asleep, he spoke to his comrades quietly and later on slipped away.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OUTCOME
What Cliff planned to do was based more on intuition than on any carefully thought out ideas. When the excitement broke out it was early morning; by the time that the camp settled down again it was almost time for dawn. As he returned to his tent with Tom and Nicky he had a sudden flash of inspiration and when he saw that in spite of their excitement his two companions fell into futile speculation, he decided that what he wanted to do could be done only if he acted alone and at once. Discussion would only waste time; no one else could accompany him. Of course he thought of consulting his elders; but like any young fellow who had what appeared to be a bright idea he wanted to accomplish his plan alone and not have to turn it over to someone else.
So Cliff slipped quietly out of camp as the first pale gray of approaching daylight threw the peaks ahead into jagged silhouette.
They had already gone down the pass; that way they had failed. Cliff turned upward. He moved quickly, alertly, progressing rapidly.
His intuition had told him that it was probable that the Indian, Huayca, if he really did mean to go to the Incas, would want to be able to report to them what the white people did when their map was stolen.
That meant to Cliff that Huayca would only go far enough ahead to find a secure hiding place. He would not want to travel off into the next stretch of pass, which was very close to a deeply cut ravine, without daylight. He could hide and watch! He might!
“If I had to watch,” Cliff thought, “I would find a place high up and out of sight. Not a tree, because I might be seen in a tree; but I would get up on a ledge if I could find one.”
There were plenty of ledges because that part of the pass led through fissures broken in the mountain by some great force of Nature in past ages. But the problem was to locate the right and most probable one in the dark and then to ascend to its top.
Far above, toward the East, the sky began to glow with the first proof that the sun was stoking his fires for a new day; in the pass night still fought to hold its own. The light gave the higher points a greater prominence and helped Cliff while the darkness around him also helped him by hiding his moving form.
“From the shape of that ledge ahead,” he said to himself, “I am coming to a bend in the pass; now that would be a fine spot if——”
He reached the bend; carefully he peered around. There ended the fissures; the pass, which had run between high cliffs, swung rather sharply around the nose of a ledge and ran along the side of an open depth, a valley filled with mist; in the dark Cliff could not tell how deep it was, nor how wide.
The ledge, right at the turn, projecting a trifle, and about sixty feet above his head, was an ideal spot to spy from; if he could find a way up it would give him a place to see the pass toward the camp and also around the bend.
“Such a ledge as that would be perfect for an ambush,” he thought. Cliff had read how the Incas, in their battles against the invading Spaniards, had ambushed soldiers in these mountain passes, dropping rocks from points above them, loosing flights of arrows, stunning them with stones from the slings with which they were expert. Here was the spot for such an attack.
How did the Incas get to such ledges? As he remembered his history, Cliff thought of a ladder woven of osier strands, tough vines that were to be found in that country. Bridges were swung across mountain streams with twisted ropes and cables of those stout vines; with planks supported by them footways were made that swayed dizzily, dipped in terrifying fashion, but that gave safe crossings to sure footed mountaineers.
He stepped off the rocky path into brush under the lip of the ledge and, almost as much by feeling as by sight, explored the side of the cliff. There was nothing, at first, to reward his search; but after some time, cleverly hidden among the brush, he found twisted, sturdy ropes that were so woven as to give the shape of a rude ladder with sagging but staunch crosspieces of the same vines. The ladder ran upward as high as his arms could reach, and without any hesitation Cliff began to climb.
From its location his ladder could not be seen until one got well around the bend and there, for the light was better and he could see, the pass ran only a short way, then swung across one of those osier bridges, still kept in repair because this was one of the main-traveled paths. Amid the brush and stuff and with trees between it and the path, the ladder was not apt to attract attention. Its withes felt pliant and fresh with sap. Cliff decided that it was not an old ladder, but a new one, recently placed; perhaps for the very purpose to which Huayca might recently have put it.
As he neared the top, Cliff became cautious. He lifted himself slowly so that he would make very little noise. When his head was level with the top of the ledge he protruded it upward with utmost care and spied around, his eyes just able to see.
The flat top of the ledge, he saw, was about an acre in extent. It sloped slightly upward to the next sharp rise at the back and light showing from the brightening sky indicated a fissure, possibly another pass, in the cleft.
But his attention focused on a clump or mass of stone, quite large, near the middle of the level space.
In the pale light it bulked like a ghostly ruin. Cliff eased carefully until he could get to the pajonal—short, yellow grass of the mountains—which covered the top of that ledge.
Then he made his way with as soft a tread as he could, to the ruin. It looked as though, in some ancient day, a granary or rest house or barracks had been built; time had helped the frost and heat to crumble many of its stones, so that it had little shape; but at one point there seemed to be a rude hut rebuilt from the stones. Toward this Cliff crept.
He had scarcely reached the side of the small stone pile when he heard what at first sounded like a groan, but then was more like a yawn.
“Huayca!—I guess!” Cliff reasoned, “he came here and when he saw our fire die down—he could, from that further ledge—he decided to take a nap.”
He wasted no time in hesitation while he thought; he sent his eyes darting here and there till he saw, close to the hut, a spot in the crumbled masonry where he could creep into a niche and be out of sight of anyone emerging from the hut door.
He squeezed into his niche only just in time. Yawning, stretching, a tall figure, arms flung wide, stood in the hut doorway for a moment, then strolled over toward the edge of the cliff, lay flat and peered toward Cliff’s camp.
Cliff, peering from his hiding place, watched steadily. The Indian, for the light was strong enough to distinguish him as dark, lithe and dressed as a native, rose to a kneeling posture.
He fidgeted with his garments while Cliff became very intent. He saw the Indian draw a paper into view. He flattened it on his knee, and in the growing brightness studied it. Then, after an instant of hesitation, he drew off one of his sandal-like foot coverings and thrust the paper, folded, into the shoe.
Cliff did some hard thinking. This must be Huayca although the light did not yet give proof of that. But the paper did. Cliff’s problem was this: if he disclosed his presence and tried to surprise the Indian the latter might escape—perhaps run to the fissure in the rocks and vanish. With the map—as Cliff surmised the paper must be—in his sandal it was imperative to capture him, and in such a way that Cliff could then be certain he would not destroy the map before Cliff could get it or summon help.
Therefore, his thinking made him determine that he must get the native into some situation where surprise and location would make up for Cliff’s inferior strength and size.