CHAPTER XXX A FORTUNE BY MISFORTUNE
"Who do you suppose that is?" asked Nicky, calling Cliff's attention toa slim figure standing not far from the point where the crevasse theywere 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 tofind a way to get to their old camp on the ledge. Bill would have beenthe natural one to do scouting but it had been decided that he ought tostay to help the boys in case of danger of discovery. Although thecrevasse, even in the middle of the day, was hidden in gloom that nosun's ray ever penetrated, and discovery was unlikely, there was thepossibility that some Incas might intrude and discover the camp. In sucha case Bill was better able to find a hiding place or to help theyounger brains to find a course of procedure. But as the figure appearedat the mouth of the crevasse, Bill was fast asleep, worn out after thelong 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 aname sharply and ran forward.
It was her shepherd of the hills. She quickly explained what sosurprised him, her presence in the hills. Then she brought him to meetthe younger members of the party. They liked him at once. He was ahandsome, wind-browned, tanned Indian with clear, honest eyes and alikeable manner, though saying little.
He had been on his way the night before to meet Caya when he had foundsome of the soldiers at the secret pass; they knew him but told him togo and watch for the strangers if they had escaped to the hills; he hadwaited nearby and was wondering what to do and how to see Caya when shehad seen him.
Mr. Gray and Bill were able to understand his hill dialect quite welland he took quite a liking to the kindly old scholar. But most of histime he spent with Caya, for he joined the camp as soon as he had goneaway long enough to bring some food.
Late that night Mr. Whitley and Pizzara returned, leading the latter'sIndians. They had found the camp on the ledge without much difficulty,there being an aqueduct that they could follow around the valley. Theyhad all the food from both slender stores and all other equipment: theyoung men were very glad to get their American clothes again, and with aspare pair of corduroy trousers, an extra woolen shirt and Mr. Whitley'sheavy coat they managed to outfit Mr. Gray in the first "civilized" garbhe had worn for several years.
They planned to sleep in the crevasse: the next day the shepherd agreedto come again and bring more dried meat and corn for their journey andto show them the way to regain the regularly traveled mountain passes.
But when they awoke the next morning Cliff, Tom and Nicky observed thecamp in dismay.
Pizzara had cheated them again. Once his natives were with him, roughhalf-breeds, more lustful for money than caring about honesty, he andthey had "cleared out" during the night, taking everything belonging toboth 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 wentsilently along the secret way with packs. He rose and followed, thinkingthat his friends of the day before were leaving with Caya. Not knowingthem he naturally did not trust them.
However, soon there came a shouting, the falling of rocks, the cries ofinjured men, the sharp flash of lightning from a long stick which one ofthe 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 happenedseveral times: then the man fell down and there was much shouting andthe tramp of feet marching along one of the higher ledges, with a chantof "Hailli--hailli!"
Bill and Mr. Whitley went to look at the place which the shepherd showedthem. 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 timethe 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 thatthe 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. Itseems that they ambushed from above and did not even climb down to seeanything."
"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. "Butwhat will her brother do?"
"He has listened to our talk about the wonders of our country," Mr. Graysaid, "and he wants to stay with his sister until he knows she will beall 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 somemoney, there, later on, and when he learns English and gets accustomedto the strange things that he will see everywhere outside his littlehidden valley--who knows? He may come to visit us, some day!"
It was with considerable regret that the three chums said goodbye toCaya. She had been very faithful as a serving maid in the earlier daysin the temple. Then she had endeared herself to their growing sense ofchivalry by her sacrifice of freedom for their own sakes. They held herhand a little longer than was their habit with modern girls, and with nosense of sheepishness either!
Her brother they frankly made a comrade and if he did not understandtheir voluble promises of entertainment when he might come to see themat Amadale, they certainly conveyed a full sense of their comradeship tothe straight young soldier.
Waving their hands, they watched Caya, her brother and the shepherd goout of sight down the crevasse and secret passway. Bill had a perfectroute for their return tucked away in his pocket for he had drawn a rudemap from the shepherd's directions.
When the three whose lives had so closely twined in with their own wereout of sight Bill turned to Mr. Whitley.
"I don't know your mind and you don't know mine," he said--and the boyswere tickled to hear the old expression he had used so often in theearlier 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 thosesupplies to be ruined in the first storm in the mountains or to beburied in snow and ice this winter."
"We aren't stealing it," Nicky suggested. "It can't be returned to theIncas and the Spaniard--won't need it----"
Mr. Gray was so eager to take the highly valuable specimens of theancient handicraft to civilization that he urged them also. Mr. Whitleydid not so much object to taking the gold; he did not wish the youngfellows to be exposed to the sight of the ambush: but Bill settled thatby going with him to bring back the gold and such supplies as they coulduse.
And so, because of greed, Pizzara had acted as an instrument to savetheir lives and then had actually sacrificed his own and those of hisnatives; and those who had been, under his revolver, actually beasts ofburden, became carriers of their own treasure.
And carry it they did, with no complaint, for the secret way which theytraversed 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 veryusable and easy way compared to the usual mountain passes.
One afternoon, as the sun was beginning to touch the tops of theWestward hills toward which the party now faced, they came to a narrowvalley across which, far above, a swinging, osier-supported bridge washung. But they did not cross the bridge; they went across the bottom ofthe valley and into a fissure in the rock that anyone would considerjust one more cav
e, broken in there by Nature.
Nevertheless, it was not a cave but the opening into a great cleft inthe virgin rock. Above them on both sides towered vast, steep graniteslabs: their way lay between them.
Presently they came to steps, steep as a ladder almost, but firmly cutand shaped slightly downward at the inward side so that the wear of useleveling off the outer edge would not for centuries make the stepsdangerous.
Up these they toiled, clinging dizzily, roped together, but not in anyreal danger. Mr. Gray, even, in spite of the toilsome journey, was inhigh spirits and, with many a rest but with a dauntless heart, hefinally 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 acleft; and when they emerged Cliff and Nicky gave a regular Indianwar-whoop!
"See where we are?" shouted Cliff. "Look--yonder is the hut where Icaught Huayca! There is the ledge where he watched our camp. This is theplace, Father, where we lost the map and all----"
Sure enough! The Inca secret way had brought them out at almost the endof their journey; a few days and they would be in Cuzco, theiradventures over!
That would have been the case if Huayca had not gone for a walk in thesecret pass the day after the attack on Pizzara.