During the next week they followed one faint clue after another, but none of them led to anything. Wilson managed to secure the names of many men who knew Sorez well and succeeded in finding some of them; but to no purpose. He visited every hotel and tavern in the city, all the railroad and steamship offices, but received not a word of information that was of any service. The two had disappeared as effectually as though they had dropped from the earth.
At the advice of Stubbs he kept out of sight as much as possible. The two had found a decent place to board and met here each night, again separating in the morning, each to pursue his own errands.
Both men heard plenty of fresh stories concerning the treasure in the mountains. Rumors of this hidden gold had reached the grandfathers of the present generation and had since been handed down as fact. The story had been strongly enough believed to inspire several expeditions among the natives themselves within the last twenty years, and also among foreigners who traded here. But the information upon which they proceeded had always been of the vaguest so that it had come to be looked upon as a fool’s quest.
The three hundred dollars was sufficient with careful buying to secure what the two men needed. Stubbs attended to all these details. They wished to make themselves as nearly as possible independent of the country, so that they could take any route which seemed to be advisable without the necessity of keeping near a base of supplies. So they purchased a large quantity of tinned goods; beef, condensed milk, and soup. Sugar, coffee, chocolate, flour, and salt made up the burden of the remainder. They also took a supply of coca leaves, which is a native stimulant enabling one to withstand the strain of incredible hardships.
Each of them secured a good Winchester. They were able to procure what ammunition they needed. A good hunting knife completed the armament of each.
For clothing they wore on their feet stout mountain shoes and carried a lighter pair in their kits. They had khaki suits and flannel shirts, with wide Panama sombreros. At the last moment Stubbs thought to add two picks, a shovel, and a hundred feet or more of stout rope. Wilson had made a copy of the map with the directions, and each man wore it attached to a stout cord about his neck and beneath his clothing.
It was in the early morning of August 21 that the two finally left Bogova, with a train of six burros loaded with provisions and supplies for a three months’ camping trip, and a native guide.
CHAPTER XIX
The Spider and the Fly
The sun came warmly out of a clear sky as they filed out of the sleeping town. To the natives and the guide they passed readily enough as American prospectors and so excited no great amount of interest. The first stage of their journey was as pleasant as a holiday excursion. Their course lay through the wooded foothills which lie between the shore and the barren desert. The Cordilleras majestic, white capped, impressive, are, nevertheless, veritable hogs. They drink up all the moisture and corral all the winds from this small strip which lies at their feet. Scarcely once in a year do they spare a drop of rain for these lower planes. And so within sight of their white summits lies this stretch of utter desolation.
It was not until the end of the first day’s journey that they reached this barren waste. To the Spanish looters this strip of burning white, so oddly located, must have seemed a barrier placed by Nature to protect her stores of gold beyond. But it doubtless only spurred them on. They passed this dead level in a day and a half of suffocating plodding, and so reached the second lap of their journey.
The trail lies broad and smooth along the lower ranges, for, even neglected as it has been for centuries, it still stands a tribute to the marvelous skill of those early engineers. The two men trudged on side by side climbing ever higher in a clean, bracing atmosphere. It would have been plodding work to any who had lesser things at stake, but as it was the days passed almost as in a dream. With each step, Wilson felt his feet growing lighter. There was a firmness about his mouth and a gladness in his eyes which had not been there until now.
On the third day they reached the highest point of the trail and started down. Both men had felt the effects of the thin air during the last twelve hours and so the descent came as a welcome relief. They camped that night among trees and in an atmosphere that relieved their tired lungs. They also built the first fire they had lighted since the start and enjoyed a hot meal of coffee and toasted porkscraps. They found the steep downward trail to be about as difficult as the upward one, as they were forced to brace themselves at every step. By night they had come to the wooded slopes of the table-lands below, supported by the mighty buttresses of the Andes. It was a fair land in which they found themselves–a land which, save for the vista of snow-capped summits and the lesser volcanic peaks, might have passed for a fertile Northern scene. It was at about sunset that they stopped and Gaspar, the guide, pointed to a spindle lava top against the sky.
“Up there,” he informed them, “is the lake of Guadiva. Some say it is there that the great treasure lies.”
“So? What treasure?” asked Stubbs, innocently.
“The treasure of the Gilded God which these people worship.”
Stubbs listened once again to the story which he had already heard a dozen times. But it came with fresh interest when told within sight of its setting. Then he stared at it until the dark blotted it out. And after that he lighted his pipe and stared at where he had last seen it. Below them a few fires burned in the darkness showing through the windows of the adobe huts.
The next morning they dismissed their guide, as it would be impossible to use him further without revealing the object of their journey. Both Stubbs and Wilson were anxious to push forward to the lake without delay and resolved to reach if possible their goal by night. They figured that as the crow flies it could not be more than twenty-five miles distant. The trail was direct and well enough marked and finally brought them to the village of Soma which is within eight miles of the base of the cone. Here, for the first time since they started, they had a glimpse of the natives. As they entered the small village of adobe huts they were surrounded by a group of the beardless brown men. In a few minutes their number had increased till they formed a complete circle some ten men deep. They did not seem unfriendly, but as they stood there chattering among themselves they made no motion to open a path for the travelers. They were ordinarily a peaceful people–these of the valley of the Jaula–and certainly in appearance looked harmless enough. Yet there was no doubt but what now they had deliberately blocked the path of these two.
Wilson looked to Stubbs.
“What does this mean?”
“Looks as though we had been brought to anchor. D’ ye know ’nuff Spanish to say ‘Howdy’ to ’em?”
“Perhaps a few presents would talk better?”
“Too many of ’em. Try your parley-vous.”
“Might move ahead a bit first and see what happens.”
“Then get a grip on your gun, m’ boy.”
“No,” objected Wilson, sharply. “You’d have a fight in a minute. Move ahead as though we did not suspect we were checked.”
He flicked the haunches of the leading burro and the patient animal started automatically. But soon his nose reached the breast of an impassive brown man. Wilson stepped forward.
“Greeting,” he said in Spanish.
He received no response.
“Greetings to the chief. Gifts for the chief,” he persisted.
The eyes of the little man in front of him blinked back with no inkling of what lay behind them. It was clear that this was a preconceived, concerted movement. It looked more serious. But Stubbs called cheerily to him:
“See here, m’ boy, there’s one thing we can do; wait for them to make a move. Sit down an’ make yerself comfortable an’ see what happens.”
They gathered the six burros into a circle, tied them with their heads together and then squatted back to back upon the ground beside them. Stubbs drew out his pipe, filled, and lighted it.
“Keep yer gun within reach,” he warned in an undertone to Wilson. “Maybe they don’t mean no harm; maybe they does. We’ll make ’em pay heavy fer what they gits from us, anyhow.”
The surrounding group watched them with silent interest, but at the end of a half hour during which nothing happened more exciting than the relighting of Stubbs’ pipe, they appeared uneasy. They found the strangers as stoical as the burros. Many of the men lounged off, but their places were promptly filled by the women and children so that the circle remained intact. Wilson grew impatient.
“It would be interesting to know whether or not we are prisoners,” he growled.
“When yer feel like beginnin’ the row we can find out that.”
“I should feel as though shooting at children to fire into this crowd.”
“Thet’s what they be–jus’ so many naked kids; but Lord, they can swing knives like men if they’re like sim’lar children I’ve seen.”
“We’re losing valuable time. We might make another move and try to shoulder our way through until the knives appear and then–”
He was interrupted by a movement in the crowd. The men fell back to make a path for a tall, lank figure who stepped forward with some show of dignity. Both Wilson and Stubbs exclaimed with one breath:
“The Priest!”
To Wilson he was the man who had tried to kill him in the dark, the man again whom he in his turn had tried to kill. He reached for his holster, but he saw that even now the man did not recognize him. The priest, however, had detected the movement.
“There are too many of us,” he smiled, raising a warning finger. “But no harm is meant.”
Save for the second or two he had seen him during the fight, this was the first time Wilson had ever had an opportunity to study the man closely. He was puzzled at first by some look in the man’s face which haunted him as though it bore some resemblance to another face. It did not seem to be any one feature,–he had never before seen in anyone such eyes; piercing, troubled dark eyes, moving as though never at ease; he had never seen in anyone such thin, tight lips drawn over the teeth as in a man with pain. The nose was normal enough and the cheek-bones high, but the whole expression of the face was one of anxious intensity, of fanatical ardor, with, shadowing it all, an air of puzzled uncertainty. Everything about the man was more or less of a jumbled paradox; he was dressed like a priest, but he looked like a man of the world; he was clearly a native in thought and action, but he looked more like an American. He stared at Stubbs as though bewildered and unable to place him. Then his face cleared.
“Where is your master?” he demanded.
“The cap’n?” growled Stubbs, anything but pleased at the form and manner of the question. “I’m not his keeper and no man is my master.”
“Does he live?”
Briefly Wilson told of what had been done with Danbury. The Priest listened with interest. Then he asked:
“And your mission here?”
Before Wilson could frame a reply, the Priest waved his hand impatiently to the crowd which melted away.
“Come with me,” he said. “I am weary and need to rest a little.”
The Priest preceded them through the village and to an adobe hut which stood at a little distance from the other houses and was further distinguished by being surrounded by green things. It was a story-and-a-half-high structure, thatched with straw.
On the way Wilson managed to whisper to Stubbs:
“Let me do the talking.”
The latter nodded surlily.
Before entering the hut the Priest gave an order to two of his followers to look after the animals. He caught a suspicious glance from Stubbs as the native led them away.
“The brutes look thirsty and I told the boy to give them food and drink. The Sun God loves all dumb things.”
The room in which they found themselves contained no furniture other than a table, a few chairs, and against one wall a bunk covered with a coarse blanket. The floor was of hard clay and uncovered. From one side of the room there led out a sort of anteroom, and from here he brought out a bottle of wine with three wooden goblets.
The afternoon sun streamed in at the open windows, throwing a golden alley of light across the table; the birds sang without and the heavy green leaves brushed whisperingly against the outer walls. It was a picture of summer peace and simplicity. But within this setting, Wilson knew there lurked a spirit that was but the smile which mocks from a death’s head. There was less to be feared from that circle of childlike eyes with which they had been surrounded outside, burning with however much antagonism, than from this single pair of sparkling beads before them, which expressed all the intelligence of a trained intellect strangely mixed with savage impulses and superstition. The Priest poured each of them a cup of sparkling wine and raised his goblet to his lips.
“If my children,” he said, almost as though in apology, “do not like strangers, it is after all the fault of strangers of the past. Some of them have respected but little the gods of my people. You are, I presume, prospecting?”
“After a fashion,” answered Wilson. “But we prospect as much for friends as gold.”
“That is better. You people are strange in your lust for gold. It leads you to do–things which were better not done.”
“It is our chief weapon in our world,” answered Wilson. “You here have other weapons.”
“With but little need of them among ourselves,” he answered slowly.
“But you go a long way to protect your gold,” retorted Wilson.
“Not for the sake of the gold itself. Our mountains guard two treasures; one is for whoever will, the other is for those not of this world.”
“We go for a treasure very much of this world,” answered Wilson, with a smile; “in fact, for a woman. She has ventured in here with one Sorez.”
Not a line of his lean face altered. He looked back at Wilson with friendly interest–with no suspicion of the important part he had already played in his life.
“This–this man searches for gold?” he asked.
“Yes–for the great treasure of which so many speak.”
There was the very slightest tightening of the lips, the merest trace of a frown between the brows.
“He is unwise; the treasure of the Gilded God is well guarded. Yes, even from him.”
A big purple butterfly circled through the sunshine and fluttered a moment above the spilled wine upon the table; then it vanished into the dark. The Priest watched it and then glanced up.
“The maid–what part does she play?”
“She is under some strange spell the man has cast over her, I think, for she has been led to believe the wildest sort of a yarn–a tale that her father, long missing, is somewhere about these mountains.”
“Her father–missing?” repeated the Priest, his face clouding uneasily.
“The girl loved him as a comrade as well as a father. The two were alone and very much together. He was a captain, and some fifteen years ago disappeared. It was thought that he sailed for some port along the western coast, but he never came back. In time the report came that he was dead, though this was never proven.”
The Priest rubbed a brown skinny hand over his eyes.
“But the maid did not believe the rumor?” he asked.
“No–she did not believe.”
Wilson did not dare tell him of the crystal gazing for fear that the Priest might jump to the conclusion that it was this power Sorez was using and so would associate the girl too closely with the treasure hunt. Yet he wished to tell him enough to protect the girl from any scheme of vengeance this man might be planning against Sorez himself.
“She is very immature,” explained Wilson, “and so believed the older man easily.”
“And you?”
“We have come in search of her–to take her back.”
“But does she wish to return?”
“If I can make her see–”
“It is difficult to make a woman see sometimes. It is possible that she was led to come to Bogova in search of her father–but that would not bring her over the mountains. There are other things–like all women she is fond of gold and jewels?”
“That may be,” answered Wilson, with heat. “But if you knew her, you would understand that no such motive would lead her to venture so much and endure so much. Nothing could blind her eyes to common sense but such a motive as this which drove her on.”
The Priest smiled; he detected the underlying incentive in Wilson’s own hazard, but there was still Stubbs and his relation to Danbury. He suspected treachery of some sort.
Wilson grew impatient.
“Night is coming on and we ought to be on our way. I suppose you are in authority over these people. Without your consent we cannot proceed.”
“No–but it is far from my intention to interfere with so worthy a mission as yours. I might even assist you. I am always glad to do anything that will help strangers to leave. Sometimes this is done in one way and–sometimes in another. I expected this Sorez to leave by to-morrow.”
“To-morrow? Why, he can’t have more than reached the lake.”
“No, but strangers do not remain long by the lake.”
For the last few moments the Priest had seemed more normal, but now the uncanny, fanatical look returned to his eyes. Stubbs nudged Wilson to rise.
The three moved towards the door.
“I shall not interfere with you–at present,” said the Priest. “But–a word of advice–work quickly. As far as the girl is concerned I think she will be ready to return by to-morrow.”
“You have seen her?”
“Not myself, but I have a thousand eyes seeing for me in these mountains. They have seen the girl and they tell me she is well,–so much for your comfort.”
But there was a smile still about the corners of the mouth which Wilson did not like.
The Priest shifted his eyes to the caravan itself. He made a note of the picks and shovels.
“You have the implements,” he remarked, “for grave digging. I trust you will not need to use them. Adios, my friends.”
He watched them until they disappeared into the woods with a sinister, self-confident smile like a spider watching a fly take the path into his web; a smile that gave him an expression strangely like that of the image itself. Before he turned into the hut again he gave several orders. Three of the brown men melted into the shadows after the caravan.
CHAPTER XX
In the Footsteps of Quesada
Once out of hearing, Stubbs, who had not spoken a word, broke out.
“If there ever was a devil treading the earth, it’s that man. I’ve tol’ Danbury so from the first. Ye can’t trust that sort. My fingers jus’ itched along the butt of my weapin’ all the while ye was talkin’. Seems though a man oughter have a right to plug sech as him an’ be done with it.”
“You’re prejudiced, Stubbs. I’ll admit the man is queer, but, after all, he is protecting his own beliefs and his own people. I don’t know as I would trust him any further than you, but–he is something of a pathetic figure, too, Stubbs.”
“Huh?”
“Looks to me almost like an exile. I’ve got more to hate him for than you have, but I don’t very long at a time.”
“Ye’ve got more t’ like him for, too; he’s doin’ his best to git rid of Sorez fer you. But I says, ‘Watch him. Watch him day an’ night–mos’ particlarly at night.’”
“But what did he mean by to-morrow? I don’t know but what we ought to let the treasure go and find Sorez first.”
“Find Sorez and ye has ter help him; help him and the Priest fixes us immejiate. Then where’s yer girl? No, th’ thing for us ter do is ter git th’ treasure first and get it quick. Then we has somethin’ ter work with.”
“And if the treasure isn’t there?”
“Get the girl an’ make a run for home. The Priest won’t touch her so long as he thinks she is jus’ bein’ fooled. If we joins th’ band, he won’t think so an’ will kill us all.”
“I don’t know but what you’re right,” answered Wilson.
They pushed their tired animals on to the foot of the mountain and, pausing here just long enough to catch their breath, began the long ascent. It was no child’s play from the first. The path was narrow, rocky, and steep, blocked by undergrowth and huge boulders, many of which at a touch became loosened and plunged with a crashing roar down the slope behind them. With any lesser incentive than that which drove them on, they would have stopped a dozen times.
Ahead of them loomed the broken crater edge with just below it a fringe of stubby trees which broke off abruptly where the barren lava began. The cone was like a huge sugar loaf with the upper third cut off unevenly. The edges were sharp and made a wild jumble of crags which were broken by many deep fissures. Here and there the mountain was split into a yawning chasm. But the growth extended to within about an eighth of a mile of the top. Here it stopped and the path became nothing but a dizzy climb up a slope as steep and smooth as a house roof.
They tethered their animals on the edge of the green growth and here Stubbs set about making a camping place for the night.
“I don’t want the dark comin’ down on me,” he growled as Wilson suggested leaving their things and pushing on to the top, “not until I finds a solid place fer my back where nothin’ can come up behin’. You go on if ye wants to, an’ I’ll git things settled.”
Wilson hesitated, but in the end he was drawn on. She lay beyond, somewhere upon the shores of the lake. It was a scramble almost upon hands and knees. It looked as though it were an impossibility for men heavily laden ever to make their way to the top. He turned once to look back, and saw behind him the green sweep of the beautiful valley of Jaula–then mile upon mile of heavy timber which extended to where the lusty mountains began once more. He attacked the trail anew and at the end of twenty minutes reached the top, bruised, cut, and exhausted. He looked down within the cone–not upon death and desolation, not upon ashes and tumbled rock, but upon the blue waters of the lake of Guadiva. It lay nestled within the bosom of this cone at a depth of just where, on the outside, the green began. The sun had set early upon it and it now lay a grayish-blue surface surrounded by a luxuriant tangle of growing things. In a circle about it stood the dark buttress of the lava sides. It was like a turquoise set in stone. The contrast to its surroundings was as startling as a living eye of faultless blue in a grinning skull.
He did not have long to look at it–not long to search its borders for some sign of the living. The dark came swiftly. As he was about to turn back, he thought he caught a glimpse of a spiral of smoke upon the farther side, but as he stared at this, it faded until he was not sure it had been at all. He took it for a good-night message from her. Then gold and jewels, though they might be within arm’s reach, became as nothing before the deep desire which almost dragged his heart from his body–which almost sent him scrambling down the steep sides within the cone to make a wild dash to reach her side that night.
When he returned, he found Stubbs anxiously waiting for him with supper ready and a shelter for the night picked out beneath two large rocks which effectively guarded their rear.
The next morning, as soon as the sun tipped with pink the snow-capped tops of the Andes, Stubbs was up and studying the map again. The air during the night had been sharp, but snugly wrapped in their blankets both men had secured a sound sleep. Towards the early morning, however, Wilson had begun to toss a little with thoughts of Jo. It was of her he first spoke. Stubbs interrupted him sharply.
“See here, m’ son,” he said with some irritation, “we ain’t got but a darned short time in which to work. So th’ only way is to mark out a course now and stick to it. While you’ve been dreamin’ of yer lady-love–which is right an’ proper–I’ve been thinkin’ on how we can git her an’ the other thing too. Here’s the pint I hed reached when you interrupted me: first and foremost, ye can’t git th’ girl until ye gits suthin’ to git her with. Sorez ain’t a-goin’ to listen to you until ye can show him he’s wrong. He ain’t goneter b’lieve he’s wrong until ye can show him th’ treasure. Secondly, the Priest gent ain’t goneter sleep till he finds out what fer we are wanderin’ ’round here. Thirdly, when he does find out, it ain’t goneter be comfortable, as ye might say, to be seen in this here harbor. Fourthly, it ain’t goneter be easy to git away with what we does find with a couple of hundred natives at our heels, which they will be mighty soon. So, says I, we’d better quit dreamin’ an’ begin fishin’ right erway.”
He paused to see what effect this had. Wilson nodded for him to go on.
“Then we’ll take another p’int; this here map starts from the hut where the heathen image lived. Wherefore we’ve got ter find thet hut afore we can start. We’ve gotter lay our course from thet. So, says I, there’s jus’ one thing ter do–hunt fer it lively.”
“On the other hand,” broke in Wilson, “if Sorez is in danger, the girl is in danger. The treasure is going to be here for a while longer, but maybe the girl won’t. If we could combine forces with Sorez–”
“Well, I’m damned!” growled Stubbs. “See here, m’ boy, the only thing that will do is to bring the Priest down on us. If Sorez wasn’t crazy, he wouldn’t have come in here with thet idol with less than a regiment back of him. But he has, an’ what we wanter do is ter keep outer the squall he’s in.”
“You don’t understand the man. He is absolutely fearless. He knows the place–he knows the natives–he knows the Priest. He won’t be caught napping.”
“Maybe so. Then he don’t need us.”
Wilson sprang to his feet. He was half ashamed of an obsession which shut out thought of everything else but the girl.
“See here, Stubbs,” he blurted out, “you’re right and I’m a sickly sentimentalist. I’ve been thinking so much of her that I’m not fit for an expedition of this sort. But from now on I’m under your orders. We’ll get this heathen treasure–and we’ll take it down and show it to Sorez–and we’ll take the girl and fight our way out if we have to. As you say, we haven’t much time and we’ve got to work hard. We know the hut is near the cone and overlooks the lake. Let’s see–”
He reached for the map which he had fastened about his neck, but Stubbs checked his hand.
“Easy, boy. Jus’ as well not to let the shadders know we has maps. I’ve gut my copy here hidden in the grass. S’posin’ the hut is in the center; this here docyment mentions two peaks–one ‘kissed by the sun’ which I take it is the highest, and t’ other where ‘the trees climb highest.’ Now at sea we often lays our course inshore by jus’ sech marks. I figgers it out this way; these p’ints bein’ startin’ p’ints from the hut mus’ be somewhere nigh the hut. So if we finds the tallest peak on the horizon an’ then the peak on the cone where the trees come up the farthest an’ gits the two in line, we’ll have a straight course for the hut. Ain’t thet so?”
“Sounds right.”
“Maybe it is; maybe it ain’t. Anyhow, it’s wuth tryin’. Now I’m for givin’ the burros lots er rope an’ lettin’ ’em nibble here. Then we’ll hide our provisions in one place an’ our ammunition in another and start immedjiate. I ’spect there’s a dozen of them niggers watchin’ us. We’ll take a good look roun’ fore we begin.”
Both men beat the bushes for the radius of a hundred rods or more without, however, bringing to light anything but a few birds. Then Stubbs piled the provisions and blankets together with the picks and shovels into a crevice between the rocks and covered them with dry leaves and bits of sticks. He made another reconnoitre before hiding the ammunition. This he finally buried in another crevice, covering it so skillfully that not a leaf beneath which it lay looked as though it had been disturbed. He piled a few stones in one place, notched a tree in another, and left a bit of his handkerchief in a third spot, to mark the caché. Then, shouldering their rifles, the two men began the ascent.
Refreshed by their rest and the brisk morning air, they reached the summit easily and once again Wilson gazed down upon the lake now reflecting golden sunbeams until it looked as though it were of molten gold itself. Even Stubbs was moved by its beauty.
“Sorter makes you feel like worshipin’ suthin’ yerself,” he exclaimed.
But he was the practical one of the two, or they would have got no further. His eyes swept the surrounding circle of peaks until they rested upon a majestic pile which so clearly overtopped its fellows as to leave no doubt that this must be the one “kissed by the sun.” To the right from where they stood the second landmark was equally distinct, the green creeping up its sides several hundred rods higher than upon the others.
“There ye are!” he exclaimed, pointing them out to Wilson. “Clear as though they was labeled. An’ now we can’t stand here admirin’ the scenery. There ain’t no trolley to where we’re bound.”
He led the way, keeping as closely as possible to the crater’s edge. But the path was a rugged one and frequently broken by half-hidden ravines which often drove them down and in a wide circle around. It was a place for sure feet and sound nerves for they skirted the edge of sheer falls of hundreds of feet. Before they reached a position opposite the crater peak, they found themselves almost down to the green line again. Here they discovered a sort of trail–scarcely marked more than a sheep path, but still fairly well outlined. They followed this to the top again. When they looked down upon the lake and across to the distant summit, they found the two landmarks in line. But neither to the right nor to the left could they see the hut–that magnet which had drawn them for so many miles over the sea. Stubbs looked disconsolate.
“Well,” he said finally, “jus’ my luck. Mighter known better.”
“But we haven’t given up yet,” said Wilson. “Did you expect to find a driveway leading to it? You get out to the right and I’ll explore to the left.”
Stubbs had not been gone more than ten minutes before he heard a shout from Wilson and hurrying to his side found him peering into a small stone hut scarcely large enough to hold more than a single man.