"Then, now eat your breakfast, and let's get on again. Take off that miserable face, for I shall not refer to the trouble again."

He held out his hand. Something very like a sob escaped from Cyril's lips, as the boy made a quick s.n.a.t.c.h at his hand, and held it in his for a moment or two.

Then the breakfast went on in silence, and Perry's appet.i.te suddenly returned; while Cyril did not do so very badly after all.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SIGNS OF SUSPICION.

Half an hour later, the little caravan was in motion, and, for the first time the preparations were delightfully easy. Eager to be of some service, and to try to make up for what he had done, Cyril began to help to load the mules, and above all, helped the colonel.

For the latter was trying hard to make the guide understand that he would like to pa.s.s through the patch of forest below them, before they ascended the mountain path visible away to their left; and the man stared at him in the most blank way possible, and then kept on pointing to a couple of great f.a.gots which lay tightly bound upon one of the mules' backs.

"It's all right, sir; let me speak to him," cried Cyril eagerly. "He thinks you keep on telling him you want wood for the next fire we make, and he says he has got plenty." Then, turning to the guide, he rapidly said a few words in the rough dialect of Indian and Spanish, with the result that the man gave the colonel a sharp look, and then nodded his head, and went off with the leading mule.

Perry gave his father an eager look, and the colonel, who was smiling with satisfaction at the ease with which a difficulty had been smoothed away, frowned.

"Oh yes, it's very nice," he said; "but I cannot afford to have an intelligent interpreter on such terms as these, Master Perry. There, get on; I said I would not refer to the trouble any more.--Hi! Cyril, my lad, you'd better ride that black mule."

"Ride--the mule, sir?" said the boy hesitatingly.

"Yes; your feet are cut and sore. Rest till they are better."

"Hurrah!" whispered Perry. "Jump up, old chap. Here, I'll give you a leg. I shall ride, too, to-day."

The next minute, both boys were mounted, and following the last mule with the second Indian.

That patch of scrubby forest looked to be close at hand, but it took them nearly an hour to reach it, everything being on so grand a scale among the mountains; but at last they began to thread their way through, with the colonel eagerly examining the different trees, the Indians noting his actions curiously, but always hanging their heads again if they thought that they were observed.

The colonel kept up his examination, but did not seem very well satisfied; and soon after, the bushy trees with their shining green leaves were left behind, and they journeyed on through what had looked at a distance like fields of b.u.t.tercups, but which proved to be a large tract covered with golden calceolaria, whose rounded turban-like flowers glistened in the sun. This looked the more beautiful from the abundance of gra.s.s, at which the mules sniffed carelessly, for they had pa.s.sed the night eating.

Then before starting upward, there was the rapid stream to cross at a spot where the rocks had fallen in a perfect chaos from the mountain-side, completely filling up the chasm along which the water ran; and here they could hear it rushing, gurgling, and trickling down a hundred channels far below, in and out amongst the rugged ma.s.ses of rock which dammed it back.

The mules made no difficulty about going over here, merely lowering their muzzles, and sniffing at the cracks and holes as they felt about with their forefeet, and climbed more than walked across to the solid rock and the bare, very faintly marked, stony track, which led up and up to a narrow gap in the mountains, evidently a pa.s.s.

Steeper and steeper grew the way, now zigzagging along a stiff slope, now making a bold dash at the mountain-side, over loose stones which went rolling down, setting others in motion till regular avalanches rolled down into the valley hundreds of feet beneath.

"Have you ever been here before, Cil?" said Perry, who now rode close behind his friend.

"No. Never any farther than the place where I overtook you."

"Isn't this very dangerous?" continued Perry, as the mules climbed up, sending the loose stones rattling down to their right.

"Eh? Dangerous? I don't know. I was wondering what they are thinking at home. Yes, I suppose it is dangerous."

"Then hadn't we better get down and walk?"

"What for? We couldn't walk up so well as the mules. They've got four legs to our two. They're a deal more clever and sure-footed than we should be."

Perry kept his seat, fully expecting to have the mule make a slip, and then for them to go rolling down hundreds of feet into the valley; but in due time the gap-like opening was reached, and through this place, with the walls on either side so steep that they looked an if they had been cut, they pa.s.sed into a narrow valley, or rather chasm, looking as if the mountains had been split down to their roots by some earthquake; and a chill of horror ran through Perry, as he checked his mule where the rest were panting and recovering their breath.

"Not a very cheerful-looking place, boys," said the colonel, as he surveyed the great chasm, running apparently for miles through the mountains, zigzagging, returning upon itself, and always dark and profound in its lower part; so deep, in fact, that from where they stood it might have gone right down to the centre of the earth, while upward the sides rose, wall-like, toward three huge peaks, which looked dazzlingly white.

All at once Perry started, and it seemed as if an electric shock had pa.s.sed through the mules. For there was a tremendous booming roar some distance away, followed by peal after peal, as if of thunder running for miles amongst the mountains, and not dying away till quite a couple of minutes had elapsed.

"Thunder," whispered Perry.

"No, I think not," said Cyril below his breath.--"What was that, Diego?"

he said in the man's tongue.

The answer was laconic, and accompanied by a smile.

"He says some of the snow fell over yonder, out of sight."

_Crash_!

There was another roar, followed by its echoes.

"Look! look!" cried Cyril excitedly. "There, just below that place where the sun shines on the ice."

"Yes, I see it," said Perry; "a waterfall." And he shaded his eyes to gaze at the glittering appearance of a cascade pouring over a shelf of ice into the depths below.

"Waterfall!" said the colonel, smiling. "There is no water up there to fall. It is a cataract of pieces of ice and solidified snow, thousands of tons of it broken away through the weight and the ma.s.s being loosened by the heat of the sun."

"Gone!" cried Cyril.

"To appear again, lower down," said the colonel, and they watched the glittering curve of dazzling ice as it reappeared and made another leap, and again another and another, lower down, till it finally disappeared by falling into some chasm behind a fold of the mountain. But the roar of the ice was continued like distant thunder, telling how enormous the fall must have been, though dwarfed by the distance into a size that appeared trifling.

Then the boys sat gazing at the black gulf before them, with its huge walls, which were nearly perpendicular in places.

"I say, of course, we're not going along that way?" said Perry nervously.

"I don't know," replied Cyril; "the tracks generally do go along the worst-looking places."

"But how can they have been so stupid as to pick those?" said Perry petulantly.

"They don't pick them," replied Cyril. "Only they are obliged to go along any places there are. Yes, we shall have to go along yonder."

"Impossible."

"How would you go, then?" said Cyril. "We're not flies; we can't climb up those walls; and you couldn't go over the mountains if you wished, because of the ice and snow. You must go in and out round them where the valleys are open, and this is open enough. There is no other way."

"But, I say, shan't you be--er--just a little afraid to go down there?"

"No," said Cyril quietly. "I don't feel afraid a bit. There's only one thing I feel afraid of now."

"What's that? Falling off one of the precipices?"