  The one thing in which Cliff did not outguess Huayca was in the manner of his planning for the white party’s annihilation. Huayca was not of the hidden Inca tribe. He was a man of Cuzco, but of the higher grade of intelligence. To him had come the Inca noble who had gone with Pizzara to America: that noble had chosen Huayca to serve him and had promised a great reward. By the failure of his ambush he had let the white party get through to Quichaka. And, worse, they had escaped again, as he discovered when he visited the scene of the night raid in the secret pass. Huayca, being a native of Cuzco, knew that the Spanish justice was as swift as that of the Incas. Since he must live in Cuzco, far from Inca protection, he must not invoke the penalties which the Spanish law would demand if he destroyed the white party. Even in such a place as the Andes passes the law of the Americans would compel the law of the Spaniards to quest and to find him out, if he turned his hand against white men of that America. He had a better plan and one so thoroughly diabolic that it seemed as though the Cupay, or evil spirit, of the Incas must have whispered it into his ear. An infuriated mob, turning against white men who sought to rob the buried Incas, hidden among the hills, of their treasure—that was the instrument that would strike swiftly and who could seek, find or punish its scattered arms afterward? No one! Having followed the party to the stairway, keeping well hidden, he let them climb. He went to another spot in the secret pass and there, with catlike agility, soared up the side of a steep crag, hanging sometimes almost by a thread of sheer willpower, clinging with nails and bare feet; but he reached the top, slipped along it to another point, there descended to the main, open-traveled pass and so across the osier bridge. While Cliff was discussing his prophetic idea Huayca ran fleetly along the main pass, under the lip of that very ledge, bound for the nearest settlement. Bill, when Cliff made his prophecy, looked very sober. “You may be right,” he told Cliff, “but here’s our situation: We can’t go back to Cuzco as Indians. If we leave this ledge we lose a good position, in the matter of strategic location; no one can attack us from below if we cut loose the ladder and we can guard the cleft much easier than we could watch an open place on the pass. I vote for staying here, at least until I can get some stuff to replace the bleacher we lost when Pizzara took our packs away.” They talked it over from every angle and finally, although Cliff felt that he was right, they found no other plan as good as Bill’s. Having their strong, light rope, plenty long enough to reach the ground, they promptly cut loose the upper fastenings of the Incas’s osier ladder and put a guard, in two-hour shifts, just within the cleft, with Bill’s small revolver, recovered from Pizzara by Bill after the visit to the scene of the Spaniard’s destruction: a shot would warn the whole camp, day or night. They ate a frugal supper for the supplies were running very low and must be made to last at least a day more, until Bill could visit the settlement and come back with more. Then, because it was cold and they did not wish to build a fire to attract attention, they made rude blanket beds within the small stone hut, and, secure in the knowledge that Nicky was wide awake, watchful, in the cleft, they slept with the healthy weariness of their long climb that afternoon. And beyond their camp the mighty Incas were getting ready to snap their jaws and leave the white party, apparently, no way of escape! At ten o’clock Nicky left his post long enough to shake Bill awake: it was Bill’s next watch. The mountain prospector woke easily, got up, already alert and rested, and took up his post. And the mountains seemed to sleep. Mr. Whitley’s watch, from midnight till two, was equally uneventful. Mr. Gray was spared a watch the first night and so it was Cliff who was called to follow Mr. Whitley. Huayca, having gone to a small settlement, called the men in council, told them that the white men who had previously gone that way were coming back, disguised as Indians, and thus fired his fuse to ignite Peruvian hatred. He told them that the men had discovered an old burial mound, far in the hills, and had ravaged it, in spite of his protest. Then, giving them some hints, he slipped away, leaving a fuse of anger steadily hissing toward a powder-keg of rage and racial hatred. Huayca, feeling quite happy, returned along the pass, over the bridge, up the cliff, along its top, down into the valley spanned by the bridge, and thus again up the stone stairway that Cliff’s party had used the afternoon before: he was back in the narrow outlet by the time that Cliff, consulting his radiumite watch face, decided to call Tom for his shift just after Cliff’s own ended. It was so still, Cliff thought, that you could almost hear the stars singing as they twinkled with strange brightness in the clear air. Not a sound reached Cliff’s ears, though. The stars did not sing, nor did anything else make any noise. Nature seemed to be resting in the wee hours before dawn, gathering her strength for a new day. So Cliff crept as quietly as he could to the hut and shook Tom. When his chum was thoroughly awake and stood outside the doorway with him, Cliff spoke. “Don’t shoot if you see a shadow on the ledge,” he said in a whisper. “I am going over to the edge and look around toward the lower pass for a minute before I roll into my blanket.” “All right,” Tom agreed, and went one way while Cliff went the other. Tom comfortably disposed just inside the open fissure, saw Cliff standing outlined against a star. The cleft was as still as a tomb. Tom gazed up at the stars, looked along the deep, velvety blackness of the fissure, turned to look again toward Cliff. Something was happening! Cliff seemed to be moving crazily—or was it Cliff and another. Tom deserted his post and raced across the turf. Then he shouted, pointed his small revolver aloft, pressed the trigger. Crash! And the camp started up. The jaws had shut and the Andes were ready to crunch their prey. |
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