On the deck of the wheezy, palpitating river steamer, “Barcelona,” toiling slowly up the turbid waters of the Magdalena, sat the usual throng of passengers who are compelled to sacrifice two weeks of their lives every time they travel from the seacoast to Colombia’s mountain capital. Fortunate such travelers count themselves if their lumbering, flat-bottomed craft, its huge stern wheel lifted high above the down-rushing eddies and whirlpools, escapes the treacherous mudbanks which form and dissolve in this ever-shifting, shallow current, and which not infrequently elude the vigilance of the navigator.

On this particular voyage, however, it is pleasant to record that the “Barcelona,” in spite of various temptations to the contrary, had behaved in a most decorous manner, diplomatically avoiding the aforesaid mudbanks, submerged treetrunks and the like and giving promise of an early arrival at her destination in the Upper Magdalena.

In any part of the world except Colombia the progress of this steamer up the river on this occasion would have been followed with the liveliest interest from one end of the country to the other. News bulletins would have chronicled every detail of her voyage; there would have been editorial speculation as to the possible delays she might encounter; predictions of the outcome of her snail-paced journey and, finally, statements—bogus or otherwise—would have come every now and then from the important personage who headed the list of the “Barcelona’s” passengers. For there was an unhappily important personage on board—a personage who, much to his own amazement, had helped in the making of history, and who was now on his way to report to the President of the Republic the details of what he had done.

Some men, according to one familiar with the accidents common to humanity, have greatness thrust upon them. General Herran was neither born great, nor had he, of his own free will, achieved greatness. But it had been thrust upon him. Without thought or act of his own he awoke one morning to find himself famous. It was an unenviable kind of fame, won in an opera-bouffe sort of way, and might, in some countries, have cost the general his head. But in Colombia there was, happily, no danger of this. Having lost his head once why should he lose it a second time, and just because he had fallen a victim to the wiles of the Panamanians?

Here is the brief but important chapter of history in which General Herran played a leading part. In the performance of his duty to quell any and every uprising which might occur on the Colombian coast he had gone with his army to the Isthmus, where, he had been told, something like a revolution was in progress. At Colon he had been courteously met on shipboard by representatives of this revolution. On their friendly invitation, and without disembarking his troops, he and his staff of officers had then been escorted politely across the Isthmus to Panama where, much to their astonishment, they were promptly lodged in jail—a climax which any one but this unsuspecting general might have foreseen. During his absence his troops were sent back by the revolutionists to Colombia—and thus, without the firing of a shot, the Republic of Panama achieved its independence.

On board the “Barcelona,” freed from the problem of keeping the Isthmians within the Colombian Union, General Herran gave no evidence of any disastrous effect on his own fortunes following his memorable experience of Panama diplomacy. The center of a convivial group of admiring friends, flanked by an inexhaustible supply of “La Cosa Sabrosa,”—the suggestive title given by one enthusiast to the native rum which accompanied them in an endless array of demijohns—this excellent leader of armies appeared to be making a triumphal progress homeward, rather than a decidedly ignominious retreat. His large mirthful brown eyes, peering out of a boyish face fringed by a heavy black beard, were undimmed by regrets and gave no token of the wily, self-seeking politician their possessor was said, by his enemies, to be. “El General,” as he was usually called, was, in fact, the best of good fellows; one who, we can well imagine, might easily forget so paltry an adjunct as his troops, lured by the promise of a lively hour or so in a gay city with congenial companions. “Bobo” his detractors might call him, or “tonto”—but never “pendejo” nor “traidor.”

With General Herran on board the “Barcelona,” although not exactly of his party, and certainly not in the least of the military persuasion, was a round-paunched, bullet-headed little man who, arrayed in the flimsiest of apparel, a wide-flapping Panama sombrero coming down to his ears, paced restlessly about the deck, fanning himself vigorously with a huge palm-leaf fan. Although of pure Spanish lineage, there was nothing of the traditional polish of his race in this explosive person’s manner or speech. He had rolled about—one can hardly describe his mode of travel by another phrase—among many people and had recently settled down in a delightfully fever-ridden section of Colombia to practice medicine. “Doctor Quinine” he was called—behind his back—and it is said that he had simplified the methods of his profession by administering, on all occasions and for all diseases, the one simple, famous drug, discovered centuries ago by his ancestors in his native Peru. Quinine and a few drastic purgatives summed up his medical creed. If these remedies failed to cure—and they sometimes did fail—why, the unfortunate victim was simply a “canaille,” and had, through his own stupidity, or malice, defeated the otherwise infallible result of the doctor’s treatment.

The quininizing of the human race, however, was not the mission upon which Dr. Manuel Valiente Miranda had at present embarked. He had recently made a journey to the United States, whither he had gone to take out a patent on some marvelous “pildoras de quinina” of his own concoction. Having succeeded in the main object of his trip, and having failed incidentally to sell a single box of these same patented “pildoras” to any one of the benighted thousands whose faith was pinned to the ordinary medical practitioner, he had resolved to return to his old occupation of dosing with quinine the faithful on the Colombian coast. On his homeward journey, however, he met a party of Americans who induced him to abandon for a time his original project and to join them in a trip to Bogota. As he was a man of independent means, a political exile from his native land, with no family ties whatsoever, there was nothing to hinder this sudden change in his plans. Hence his presence on the “Barcelona,” where he had assumed guardianship over his American friends—whom he abused on occasion, as was his wont with those he liked—and where he engaged in sarcastic tilts with his old ally “El General.”

In the political upheaval caused by the secession of Panama Doctor Miranda took especial delight; nor did he hesitate to upbraid those in authority for what he called their lack of gumption in the present situation. He predicted, moreover, the coming supremacy of “los Yankees” in South America. In all of this Doctor Miranda was good naturedly tolerated by his Colombian friends, who suffered his sarcasm much as they did his quinine, ignoring the bitterness out of regard for the curative virtue behind it.

Harold and Una Leighton, David Meudon, Andrew Parmelee and Mrs. Quayle were the Americans to whom Doctor Miranda had attached himself on this pilgrimage to Bogota. It was an oddly assorted party. That the persons composing it should be voyaging together up the Magdalena, with an eccentric Peruvian physician as a sort of cicerone, and in friendly intimacy with a group of discredited army officers accused of a traitorous abandonment of the national cause, formed one of those curious situations not unusual in South American travel.

The reader has already learned of the decision reached by Harold Leighton and David to visit Bogota in order to solve there the mystery of the three months following the dynamite explosion in the Guatavita tunnel. As her uncle had foreseen, Una insisted on going with them, and had brought Mrs. Quayle along besides. There was no particular reason why that estimable lady should accompany them. She had rarely ventured beyond the borders of her native Connecticut, and could certainly be of no possible use on so long and difficult a journey as this. But something had to be done with her. She was afraid to be left alone at Stoneleigh, and as she was anxious about Una it seemed best on the whole to take her along. She proved an inoffensive traveler and gave amusement to more than one tourist by her extraordinary costumes, especially the massive, old-fashioned jewelry, with which her hands and neck were covered and from which she refused ever to be parted.

The trip was a hard one for Leighton, who was wedded to his quiet methodical life in Rysdale, and who had no mind for the distractions and annoyances of foreign travel. He was spurred to activity, however, by his interest in the psychological puzzle presented by David, added to which was a growing curiosity regarding the mysterious Indian lake and its reputed treasure. An ordinary mining scheme, no matter how promising, would not have moved the philosophic master of Stoneleigh. But here was something out of which might come a fine scientific discovery revealing the secrets of a bygone civilization. Hence, he had not regretted his resolution to make this quixotic pilgrimage and, as he had latterly fallen into a sort of dependence on Andrew Parmelee for much of the detail work connected with his scientific studies, he had arranged with the village authorities for the schoolmaster to accompany him to Colombia.

Andrew was not a little alarmed at the intimate daily association with Una, the object of his adoration, which such a journey involved. But the fancied terrors of the situation had their compensations. It might even happen that in the primitive region to which they were going he could be of vital service to this stony-hearted fair one—a possibility that filled him with dreams of deadly peril by land and sea in which he acted the part of rescuer to helpless innocence. So, this modern knight errant was miraculously strengthened to ward off the attacks of his Aunt Hepzibah, and departed on his mission fired with all the zeal of the hero of La Mancha, his high resolve unclouded by the horrors that speedily came to him in the rotund nightmare known in the flesh as Doctor Miranda.

“Ah, this little Yankee,” repeatedly declared that restless follower of Aesculapius, regarding the bewildered Andrew with professional glee; “he must take my pills or he will die!”

Then, Andrew, helplessly declaring that he never felt better in his life, would be seized by the merciless doctor, his eyelids forced apart until the whites of the eyes were fully exposed to whoever cared to inspect them, while a triumphant announcement marked the success of the dismal exhibit: “See! it is all yellow! This leetle fellow have the malaria, the calentura. And he refuse to take my pills—the estupido!”

But if Andrew was disturbed by these alarming outbreaks of the doctor, his companions enjoyed to the full that mental and physical relaxation experienced by many only in the tropics. An endless panorama of primeval forest, broken at intervals by clusters of wattled Indian huts, known as villages, with high-sounding names, to the Magdalena boatmen, gave to the long river journey the pleasant surprises of some half remembered dream. There was the charm of the familiar as well as the picturesque in the drowsy air, the swift oily flow of turbid waters, the flashing green, gold and scarlet of the riotous shore. Merely to feel, if only for a day, the changing moods of this tropical nature, more than repaid, one felt, all the hardships and weariness of primitive travel.

For Una and David all this formed a memorable interlude in their mutual experiences. Even the complex mission upon which the girl had entered was forgotten in the novelty of the world to which chance had brought her. The scenic splendor of the river exceeded anything she had imagined. She was fascinated by the wide sweep of water, the foliage, the glorious passion-flowers that embroidered, here and there, the thick mantle of green vines and swaying lianas that bound the treetops to the river beneath; by the flocks of parrots, glistening like living emeralds in the sun-bathed air, chattering their language of wild happiness as they flew from branch to branch on the silent shore. Never had she beheld such serene, graceful creatures as the swans—she took them for swans, although Leighton chuckled grimly when appealed to on the subject—great, long-necked birds, wheeling and soaring far above the steamer, clouds of shimmering white in a sea of purest sapphire. White, too with head and neck a brilliant scarlet, was the stately King of the Vultures, surrounded by a fluttering throng of dusky followers, dining on a dead alligator.

“See, Senorita!” exclaimed Miranda, pointing to a bowerlike opening amid the bushes and trees on the shore. “Ah, he is one bad fellow, that canaille!”

“I see nothing. Oh, yes—another dead alligator!”

“Dead!” laughed the doctor. “He is just one trap. Soon he come together—so!—and catch his dinner.”

It was a familiar scene on this river of the tropics: an alligator lying motionless on the shore, his yellow, mottled jaws open, waiting for his prey. In form and color he seemed a part of the dead branches and tangle of brushwood he had chosen for his resting place. Once recognized, however, and the malignant creature became a vivid symbol of the ruthless death with which he threatened whoever mistook his yawning mouth for a rift in a fallen tree-trunk.

“What a monster!” exclaimed David, roused from his daylong dreams.

“Estupido!” retorted Miranda. “He wait for his dinner—as you and I—that is all. The so cruel alligator, you know, is good mother for the young ones. She love them better than some womens.”

“That hideous brute!”

“Si, Senor!” declared the doctor. “So soon that they hatch themselves, she carry the young ones in the mouth and teach them to hunt. She fight for them and die, if it be so.”

Miranda’s vague natural history was of the kind derived from wonder-loving natives. It blended well with the Magdalena’s scenic marvels, the wild animal life, glimpses of which were caught at every hand, the dark-skinned natives in their rude dugouts—all that set this apart as a sort of primeval world far removed from any hint of the modern. But the skepticism of the scientist was proof against idle tales.

“I am not sure that your theory of the alligator is correct, Senor Doctor,” remarked Leighton dryly.

“Ah, carai!” spluttered Miranda, wheeling about, ever ready for the fray.

“What you say about the care of the female alligator for her young may be true enough,” said the savant, ignoring the scowl with which he was regarded; “but that the brute over there in the bushes is holding his mouth open by the hour in that ridiculous fashion, hoping that something may walk into it, is unreasonable.”

“Then, what for she do it?” demanded the doctor severely.

“I can’t tell you that,” admitted Leighton, adding, with a touch of humor, “perhaps he finds it comfortable on a hot day like this to get as much air as he can. Of course, I have no doubt that he would close his mouth quickly enough if any creature walked into it.”

“I agree with Mr. Leighton,” ventured the schoolmaster.

“Ah!” sniffed the doctor scornfully. “And you, Senorita?”

“Why,” said Una doubtfully, enjoying the doctor’s wrath, “he certainly does look hungry, doesn’t he? I wouldn’t trust him—although he seems to be asleep.”

“And you, Senor?” glaring at David.

“Oh, I’m not a naturalist,” he laughed. “But, he looks like a pretty good sort of trap, just the same.”

“Bueno, General, what sayest thou?” asked the doctor somewhat mollified. “What is that cayman doing there under the trees?”

General Herran gazed meditatively at the monster who was unconsciously causing this pother in natural history, and his eyes had a reminiscent twinkle as he answered the question:

“That cayman with his mouth open is like the Yankee waiting for Colombia to walk in.”

“And you walked in!” shouted Miranda delightedly.

“Well, I walked out again,” said the other complacently.

“But you left Panama inside the mouth!”

“Have your joke, Senor Doctor,” said Herran, not relishing the broad allusion to his discomfiture. “But perhaps your American friends here will find a cayman in the bushes. Why do they go to Bogota just now?”

“They are friends to you. With you it is all right.”

“I hear that the peons are rising against the Yankees.”

“The canaille! They can do nothing.”

“Besides,” pursued the general, “excellent and harmless as this learned Senor and his family are, I can hardly appear, under all the circumstances, as protector and champion of a party of Americans.”

General Herran spoke in so rapid an undertone that only one to whom Spanish is the native tongue could have followed him. But Leighton’s keen intelligence, although he was not well versed in Spanish idioms, was quick to catch at least an inkling of what was passing between his two companions.

“There is danger for Americans traveling in the interior?” he asked.

“I not say so,” replied the doctor stoutly.

Herran tugged at the tangles of his bushy beard. “I hear that some peons have left Bogota to fight the Yankees on the coast,” he said. “But—it is nothing.”

“Well, what shall we do?”

The general shrugged his shoulders. Miranda fanned himself more vigorously than ever.

“It is not important, Senor,” he said impatiently. “These people are good peoples; they are not caymans.”

“Perhaps it is better to wait before you go to Bogota,” persisted Herran.

“Wait in the river?” angrily demanded the doctor.

“I don’t believe there is any danger. I love this country,” said Una. “Let’s go to Bogota, Uncle Harold.”

“Heavens, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Quayle tremulously, the heavy gold rings that adorned her fingers clicking together in dismay. “With all these savage, half-dressed natives about, threatening the lives of innocent Americans—and poor Mr. Parmelee down with this terrible fever——”

“I am not,” feebly protested Andrew.

“Yes, that is so!” exclaimed the doctor, a joyous grin wrinkling his face. “The vieja (old lady) speak right. We stay at Honda and give this little fellow my pills.”

“There is sense in your plan,” declared Leighton. “If we can be comfortable—and safe—at Honda, we will stay until we know what is happening away from the river, and until Mr. Parmelee regains his health under your treatment.”

“My dear Mr. Leighton, I assure you,——” began the schoolmaster piteously.

“Don’t be an estolido!” interrupted Miranda bruskly. “Soon you will be all right with my pills. This little vieja, she know—she is very wise.”

Mrs. Quayle’s gray ringlets bobbed deprecatingly at this generous tribute to a hitherto unsuspected sagacity on the part of their modest owner, while Andrew looked more uncomfortable and woebegone than ever.

“Doctor, you are sure that Mr. Parmelee has this miserable fever?” inquired Una anxiously.

“Senorita,” declared the little man, drawing himself up impressively, “I never mistake. I have been doctor when thousand and thousand die of the calentura——”

“Good heavens! Poor, dear Mr. Parmelee!” murmured Mrs. Quayle.

“And I know,” continued Miranda, ignoring the interruption. “I say he have the calentura, the malaria. You will see in the eyes—I will show to you.”

Andrew, prepared for what was coming, eluded his medical tormentor, seeking safety behind the chair of the portly Leighton.

“Caramba! que estupido!” growled the doctor, balked of his prey. “Bueno,” he added, fanning himself resignedly, “we shall see. In Honda you take my pills. Soon we will be there. And then it is good that everyone take my pills. I am friend to you. I will take the care, I charge nothing for the family.”

“I’ll not stay in Honda,” said David, breaking the silence following this wholesale offer of assistance. “I must get to Bogota as quickly as possible. Once there I can let you know if it’s safe to travel into the interior.”

“A good idea,” assented Leighton.

“If it’s dangerous for us, it’s dangerous for you,” objected Una.

“Oh, I’ll take a burro loaded with the doctor’s pills along with me,” said David. “I know the country. I have friends in Bogota; there is no danger. And I leave you in good hands.”

“So, that is settle,” remarked Miranda complacently. “Very good! I take care to your families. But—you will beware, my young fellow.”

“I tell you I’ll have a burro load of your pills, doctor!”

“That is good. You are not estupido, like this leetle fellow with the malaria! Remember, these people are no friend just now to the Yankee.”

“Everyone knows me here; I have no enemies,” was the confident reply.

Honda, the picturesque little river-port whence the traveler from the coast sets out on muleback for his three days’ journey up the mountains to Bogota, was reached on the following day, after a twenty-five mile trip by rail from La Dorada, the terminus of the Magdalena steamers. Charming as Honda is architecturally, its quaint red-tiled houses nestling against a background of radiantly green foothills over which the winding trails leading to the far distant capital are scarcely ever without their ascending or descending trains of jostling mules and burros, the place has something of a bad name among foreigners for its fevers. Whether or not its reputation in this respect is deserved would be hard to say. For the traveler, certainly, who has been confined for ten days to the rude quarters provided by a river steamer, the little town comes as a welcome respite in a long if not uninteresting journey. Here, for the first time, he tastes the freedom and glamour of the Andes; and in the movement and bustle incident to setting out on the arduous pull over the primitive passes that thread their way across the mountains, there is the stimulus that comes with the promise of adventure and discovery. Honda, with its radiant sunshine, its tilted streets, its cool white buildings and low rambling hostelries hidden under a veil of flashing greenery, its sparkling little mountain stream tumbling beneath a venerable bridge that savors of the days of Spanish conquest and romance, is the link of emerald between the mighty river of the tropics and the vast highlands that stretch upward to the region of perpetual snow. As an emerald it lives ever after in the traveler’s memory.

In this village—it is hardly more than that—oriental in its sensuous beauty, American of a century or two ago in character and outward aspect, the “Barcelona’s” passengers were content to stay for a time. Una’s delight in the picturesque little settlement was marred by the impending separation from David. It was not merely his absence that caused her unhappiness; she worried over the dangers that she believed awaited him in Bogota. Her anxiety was increased by the rumor, reaching the travelers on their arrival at La Dorado, that war had been declared between the United States and Colombia. There was no truth in this rumor; it was without official confirmation, and ridiculed alike by Doctor Miranda, David and Leighton. But it was credited by most of the natives, whose belief was stoutly upheld by the principal American resident of Honda, an amiable patriarch who had once acted as his government’s representative and was known throughout the republic. True or false, the rumor did not add to the comfort of the travelers, and intensified Una’s desire to keep David with the rest of the party until they could all set out together for Bogota.