  “Who do you suppose that is?” asked Nicky, calling Cliff’s attention to a slim figure standing not far from the point where the crevasse they were in opened onto the secret passway. “Do you think it is a spy?” Tom whispered. They were still in hiding. Pizzara and Mr. Whitley had gone away early in the morning to try to find a way to get to their old camp on the ledge. Bill would have been the natural one to do scouting but it had been decided that he ought to stay to help the boys in case of danger of discovery. Although the crevasse, even in the middle of the day, was hidden in gloom that no sun’s ray ever penetrated, and discovery was unlikely, there was the possibility that some Incas might intrude and discover the camp. In such a case Bill was better able to find a hiding place or to help the younger brains to find a course of procedure. But as the figure appeared at the mouth of the crevasse, Bill was fast asleep, worn out after the long exertion. “Shall we call Bill?” asked Nicky. “Wait,” suggested Tom. “Keep perfectly still and see what he does.” But they had forgotten Caya. Rolled in her robe she had been asleep; suddenly, sitting up and staring, she leaped to her feet, cried out a name sharply and ran forward. It was her shepherd of the hills. She quickly explained what so surprised him, her presence in the hills. Then she brought him to meet the younger members of the party. They liked him at once. He was a handsome, wind-browned, tanned Indian with clear, honest eyes and a likeable manner, though saying little. He had been on his way the night before to meet Caya when he had found some of the soldiers at the secret pass; they knew him but told him to go and watch for the strangers if they had escaped to the hills; he had waited nearby and was wondering what to do and how to see Caya when she had seen him. Mr. Gray and Bill were able to understand his hill dialect quite well and he took quite a liking to the kindly old scholar. But most of his time he spent with Caya, for he joined the camp as soon as he had gone away long enough to bring some food. Late that night Mr. Whitley and Pizzara returned, leading the latter’s Indians. They had found the camp on the ledge without much difficulty, there being an aqueduct that they could follow around the valley. They had all the food from both slender stores and all other equipment: the young men were very glad to get their American clothes again, and with a spare pair of corduroy trousers, an extra woolen shirt and Mr. Whitley’s heavy coat they managed to outfit Mr. Gray in the first “civilized” garb he had worn for several years. They planned to sleep in the crevasse: the next day the shepherd agreed to come again and bring more dried meat and corn for their journey and to show them the way to regain the regularly traveled mountain passes. But when they awoke the next morning Cliff, Tom and Nicky observed the camp in dismay. Pizzara had cheated them again. Once his natives were with him, rough half-breeds, more lustful for money than caring about honesty, he and they had “cleared out” during the night, taking everything belonging to both parties! For once, however, his cupidity had led him astray. When the young shepherd came to the camp the next day, soon after sunup, he told them that he had seen a strange thing: nearly a dozen men went silently along the secret way with packs. He rose and followed, thinking that his friends of the day before were leaving with Caya. Not knowing them he naturally did not trust them. However, soon there came a shouting, the falling of rocks, the cries of injured men, the sharp flash of lightning from a long stick which one of the men held. Thus the Indian described Bill’s rifle which the Spaniard had stolen. There was a loud noise after the flash, he said, and this happened several times: then the man fell down and there was much shouting and the tramp of feet marching along one of the higher ledges, with a chant of “Hailli—hailli!” Bill and Mr. Whitley went to look at the place which the shepherd showed them. When they came back they were very sober and serious. “Pizzara has stolen his last piece of gold,” Bill told the eager chums. “It looks as though the Incas ambushed his party again—only this time the ambush was a complete success.” “Wiped out!” Mr. Whitley whispered to Mr. Gray. “And how about the supplies?” Cliff asked. “The Incas seemed to want to destroy the party: probably they think that the ones they attacked were our party. At any rate they used arrows, rocks and made a complete job of it. But they left the packs intact. It seems that they ambushed from above and did not even climb down to see anything.” “Then the gold is there too,” Tom said. “Yes,” said Mr. Whitley. Little more was said. They became thoughtful and silent. “Caya and her brother are going with the shepherd,” Bill said at length. “He will take them to his mother’s little hut.” “I suppose Caya will marry him when she gets old enough,” Tom said. “But what will her brother do?” “He has listened to our talk about the wonders of our country,” Mr. Gray said, “and he wants to stay with his sister until he knows she will be all right, and that, I suppose, means ‘until she marries the shepherd,’ then he will make his way to Cuzco. I have promised to send him some money, there, later on, and when he learns English and gets accustomed to the strange things that he will see everywhere outside his little hidden valley—who knows? He may come to visit us, some day!” It was with considerable regret that the three chums said goodbye to Caya. She had been very faithful as a serving maid in the earlier days in the temple. Then she had endeared herself to their growing sense of chivalry by her sacrifice of freedom for their own sakes. They held her hand a little longer than was their habit with modern girls, and with no sense of sheepishness either! Her brother they frankly made a comrade and if he did not understand their voluble promises of entertainment when he might come to see them at Amadale, they certainly conveyed a full sense of their comradeship to the straight young soldier. Waving their hands, they watched Caya, her brother and the shepherd go out of sight down the crevasse and secret passway. Bill had a perfect route for their return tucked away in his pocket for he had drawn a rude map from the shepherd’s directions. When the three whose lives had so closely twined in with their own were out of sight Bill turned to Mr. Whitley. “I don’t know your mind and you don’t know mine,” he said—and the boys were tickled to hear the old expression he had used so often in the earlier days of their association—it seemed to bring them back to real, everyday things. “But to me it is a sin to leave that gold and those supplies to be ruined in the first storm in the mountains or to be buried in snow and ice this winter.” “We aren’t stealing it,” Nicky suggested. “It can’t be returned to the Incas and the Spaniard—won’t need it——” Mr. Gray was so eager to take the highly valuable specimens of the ancient handicraft to civilization that he urged them also. Mr. Whitley did not so much object to taking the gold; he did not wish the young fellows to be exposed to the sight of the ambush: but Bill settled that by going with him to bring back the gold and such supplies as they could use. And so, because of greed, Pizzara had acted as an instrument to save their lives and then had actually sacrificed his own and those of his natives; and those who had been, under his revolver, actually beasts of burden, became carriers of their own treasure. And carry it they did, with no complaint, for the secret way which they traversed was by no means as terrible as that by which they had come. The Inca’s way was cleverly chosen, cleverly hidden. But it was a very usable and easy way compared to the usual mountain passes. One afternoon, as the sun was beginning to touch the tops of the Westward hills toward which the party now faced, they came to a narrow valley across which, far above, a swinging, osier-supported bridge was hung. But they did not cross the bridge; they went across the bottom of the valley and into a fissure in the rock that anyone would consider just one more cave, broken in there by Nature. Nevertheless, it was not a cave but the opening into a great cleft in the virgin rock. Above them on both sides towered vast, steep granite slabs: their way lay between them. Presently they came to steps, steep as a ladder almost, but firmly cut and shaped slightly downward at the inward side so that the wear of use leveling off the outer edge would not for centuries make the steps dangerous. Up these they toiled, clinging dizzily, roped together, but not in any real danger. Mr. Gray, even, in spite of the toilsome journey, was in high spirits and, with many a rest but with a dauntless heart, he finally reached the top step and sat with his companions for a rest. Soon they were off again: this time for only a short distance through a cleft; and when they emerged Cliff and Nicky gave a regular Indian war-whoop! “See where we are?” shouted Cliff. “Look—yonder is the hut where I caught Huayca! There is the ledge where he watched our camp. This is the place, Father, where we lost the map and all——” Sure enough! The Inca secret way had brought them out at almost the end of their journey; a few days and they would be in Cuzco, their adventures over! That would have been the case if Huayca had not gone for a walk in the secret pass the day after the attack on Pizzara. |
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