The pass which our travellers had just crossed merely led them over a mountain chain which may be described as the Peruvian Cordillera. Beyond it lay a fruitful valley of considerable extent, which terminated at the base of the great range, or backbone, of the Andes. Beyond this again lay another valley of greater extent than the first, which was bounded by a third range or cordillera of inferior height, the eastern slopes of which descended on one hand in varying undulations to the dense forests of equatorial Brazil, on the other, by easy gradations to the level Pampas or plains which extend for hundreds of miles through the lands of the Argentine Confederation to the Atlantic.

Two mountain passes, therefore, were still to be crossed, and Lawrence Armstrong began to think that if things went on as they had begun a pretty lively experience probably lay before them.

But in this he was mistaken, at least as regarded banditti, though in some other respects the journey was not quite devoid of stirring incidents—as we shall see.

We have said that the good-nature of the young Englishman induced him to attempt conversation with the Indian girl, and at first Manuela appeared to be amused, if not interested, by his unsuccessful efforts; but after one of these futile attempts Pedro made some remarks to the girl in the Indian tongue, and in a tone of remonstrance, which had the effect of rendering her more silent and grave than before. Lawrence, therefore, finally ceased to address her, though his natural gallantry prompted him to offer assistance when it seemed necessary, and to accost her with a hearty good-night and good-morning each day.

As Pedro, in his capacity of guide, usually rode a few paces in advance, and was frequently in a silent, abstracted mood, Lawrence was thus thrown almost entirely on the negro for companionship. Although the young Englishman may not have estimated his company very highly, nothing could have been more satisfactory to Quashy, who, with delight expressed in every wrinkle and lineament of his black visage, fully availed himself of his opportunities.

“O Massa Lawrie!” he exclaimed, at the close of one of their conversations, “how I does lub to talk ob de ole times when me an’ you was play togidder!”

“Yes, it’s very nice to recall old times,” answered Lawrence, with a half-suppressed yawn, for they had by that time gone over the old times so often that the novelty had rather worn off.

“Yes, bery nice,” repeated Quashy, with gleaming eyes, “when I tink ob de ole fadder an’ de ole mill an’ de ole fun what me an’ you carried on—oh! my heart goes like to bu’st.”

“Don’t let it bu’st here, whatever you do, Quashy, for you’ll need all the heart you possess to carry you safely over these mountain passes.”

Quashy opened his huge mouth, shut his eyes, and went off in a high falsetto—his usual mode of laughing. He always laughed at Lawrence’s little jokes, whether good or bad, insomuch that the youth finally abstained from jesting as much as possible.

“I did not know,” continued Lawrence, “that there were so many robbers about. Pedro tells me that the mountains are swarming with them just now.”

“Ho yis, massa, plenty ob rubbers eberywhar,” said Quashy, with a nod, “more nor ’nuff ob dem. You see, massa, Chili an’ Proo’s a-fightin’ wid each oder jus’ now. What dey’s fightin’ about no mortial knows; an’, what’s more, nobody cares. I s’pose one say de oder’s wrong an’ de oder say de one’s say not right. Bof say das a big lie so at it dey goes hammer an’ tongs to prove—ha! ha! to prove dey’s bof right. Oh my!”

Here the negro opened his cavernous jaws and gave vent to another explosion of shrill laughter.

“What fools dey is!”

“Then you think it is only fools who fight, Quashy?”

“Ob coorse, massa. Don’ you see, if dey wasn’t fools dey wouldn’t fight; ’cause fightin’ can’t prove nuffin’, an’ it can’t do nuffin’, ’cep’ waste life an’ money. No doubt,” added the negro, with a meditative gaze at the ground, “when rubbers come at a feller he’s boun’ to fight, for why? he can’t help it; or when Red Injin savages—”

“Have a care, Quashy, what you say about Indians. I’ve warned you once already.”

“O massa!” said the poor black, with a look of almost superhuman penitence, “I beg your pard’n. I’s quite forgit to remimber. I was just agwine to say that there is times when you mus’ fight. But isn’t Chili Christ’n, an’ isn’t P’roo Christ’n? I don’ bleeve in Christ’ns what cut each oder’s t’roats to prove dey’s right. Howsever, das noting. What I’s agwine to say is—dars a lot o’ white livers on bof sides, an’ dese dey runs away, takes to de mountains and becomes rubbers. But dey’s not all bad alike, dough none of em’s good. You’s heer’d ob Conrad ob de Mountains, massa?”

“Yes, Pedro mentioned his name. He seems to be a celebrated bandit.”

“Well, I’s not sure. Some peepil say he’s not a rubber at all, but a good sort o’ feller as goes mad sometimes. He’s bery kind to women an’ child’n, but he’s bery awrful.”

“That’s a strange character. How do you know he’s so very awful, Quashy?”

“Because I seed ’im, massa.”

“Indeed, where?”

“On de plains ob Proo, massa,” replied the negro, with that self-satisfied clearing of the throat which was usually the prelude to a long story.

“Come now, Quashy,” said Lawrence, with a laugh, “don’t be too long-winded, and don’t exaggerate.”

“Don’t ex-what-gerate, massa?”

“Exaggerate.”

“What’s dat, massa?”

“Never mind, Quashy—go on.”

With a genial and highly exaggerated smile, the negro proceeded:—

“Well, as I was agwine to say, I see dis man, Conrad ob de Mountains, on de plains ob Proo. I’s in de Proo camp at de time, attendin’ on you’s fadder, an’ de army ob Chili was in front ob us on de slopes ob de hills, agwine to go in for a fight wid us. De sojers of Proo wasn’t bery keen for fightin’. I could see dat, but their gin’ral screwed ’em up to de pint, an’ dey was all ready, when all of a sudden, we sees a pris’ner brought in by four sojers. Dey seem so ’fraid ob him dey darn’t touch him, tho’ he was unarmed. Two walked behind him, an’ two walked in front ob ’im, all wid dere baynets pintin’ at ’im, ready to skewer ’im all round if he was try to run. But, poor chap, he walk wid his head down, bery sad-like—nebber t’inkin’ ob runnin’. So dey druv’ ’im up to our gin’ral. I was in a crowd o’ tall fellers, an’ de pris’ner had his back to me, so I not seed his face well. ‘Das Conrad ob de Mountains dey’ve cotched,’ says a feller near me. ‘Listen!’ We all listen’d so quiet you could hear a ’skito sneeze. ‘What’s you’ name?’ asks de gin’ral, ridin’ close up to Conrad on his splendid war-hoss—a child ob one ob de war-hosses as come ober wid Pizarro from Spain. ‘My name’s Pumpkin,’ answers de pris’ner. ‘Das a lie!’ says de gin’ral. ‘No’s not,’ says Conrad, lookin’ up, as I could see by de back ob his head. ‘What side you b’longs to, raskil?’ ‘To no side, gin’ral.’ ‘Whar you come fro’?’ ‘Fro’ de mountains, gin’r’l.’ ‘Whar you go to?’ ‘Ober de mountains, gin’ral.’ I could see by de way de fedders in de gin’ral’s hat shake dat he’s gittin’ in a wax at de cool imprence ob de pris’ner, but he ’strain hisself, an’ spoke sarkmustic. ‘Senhor Pumpkin,’ says he, ‘you are Conrad ob de Mountains,’—(’cause he guess who he was by dat time); ‘how you prepose to go ober de mountains?’ ‘Dis way!’ says Conrad, an’, nixt momint, up goes de gin’ral’s leg, down goes his head an’ fedders on de ground, and Conrad sits in de saddle afore you can wink. All round de baynets was charge, but dey haul up jist in time not to skewer one anoder, for de horse shotted out fro’ between dem all, an’ away straight to de Chili lines, whar dere was a great cheerin’, for dey t’ought it was a deserter. When Conrad came up, he trotted quietly troo de ranks, till he got near to whar de Chili commander stood wid his hofficers, wonderin’ who he was. As he couldn’t ’spec’ to git no furder, he rides quietly up to a hofficer, takes de sword out ob his hand afore he understand what he wants, den, diggin’ de spurs into de big war-hoss, off he goes wid a yell like a Red Inj—oh! I’s mean like a—a buff’lo bull. Out comes de swords. Dey close all round ’im. I no see him by dat time. He too fur off; but a friend ob mine was near, an’ he say dat Conrad swing de long sword so quick, an’ de sun was shinin’ so clar, dat it look like a circle ob fire all round him. Down dey hoed on ebery side. Off goed a head here, an arm dere. One trooper cut troo at de waist, an’ fall’d off, but de legs stick on. Anoder splitted right down fro’ de helmet, so as one half fall on one side, an’ de odour half fall—”

“Come now, Quashy,” interrupted Lawrence, with a laugh, “you exaggerate.”

“What! you call dat exaggerate, massa? Den Conrad exaggerate about ten more afore he cut his way troo an’ ’scaped to de hills. Oh, he’s an awrful man!”

“Truly he must be very awful, if all you relate of him be true,” said Lawrence; “and I sincerely trust that if we fall in with him we may find him friendly. Now, I shall ride forward, and ask Pedro if we are far from our halting-place.”

This abrupt change of subject was usually understood by the amiable negro to mean that our hero—whom he persisted in regarding as his master—had had enough of his conversation at that time, so he reined back his mule, while Lawrence pushed forward.

To his question Pedro replied that he expected to reach the next sleeping-place very soon.

“It will not be as luxurious as the last,” he said; “but, doubtless, one who has traversed the mountains of Scotland is prepared to rough it in South America.”

“You speak as if you were yourself somewhat acquainted with the Scottish mountains.”

“So I am, senhor,” replied the guide. “I had clambered up Ben Nevis while I was yet a little boy.”

“Surely you are not a Scot?” said Lawrence, with a quick glance.

“No, I am not a Scot, senhor. To have travelled in a country does not render one a native, else might I claim England, Ireland, and Switzerland as my native lands. See, yonder lies the little farm where I hope to put up for the night.”

He pointed as he spoke to the head of the glen or valley, which was somewhat narrower and more gloomy than the vales through which they had ridden in the earlier part of the day. Since crossing the first cordillera on the Pacific side of the Andes they had, indeed, traversed a great variety of country. In some places the land was rocky and comparatively barren. In others, where the peculiar form of the mountains sheltered the table-lands, the country was fertile, and numerous farms dotted the landscape, but as they ascended higher on the main chain the farms became fewer, until they finally disappeared, and an occasional hut, with a mere patch of cultivated ground, was all that remained in the vast solitudes to tell of the presence of man.

It was to one of these huts that Pedro now directed his companion’s attention.

“A most suitable place for the abode of banditti,” remarked Lawrence, as they advanced up the winding path.

“And many a time do the bandits lodge there,” returned Pedro. “Of course, robbers of the Andes do not go about with placards on their backs announcing their profession to all the world, and, as long as they behave themselves, farmers are bound to regard them as honest men.”

“You said, if I heard rightly,” observed Lawrence, “that you had formerly met with the rascal whom we let off the other day.”

“Yes, I know him well. One of the worst men in the land. I’m almost sorry we did not shoot him, but I never could take human life in cold blood, even when that life had been forfeited over and over again. However, he’s sure to get his deserts sooner or later.”

“Then he is not Conrad of the Mountains whom you mentioned to me lately?”

“No, Conrad is a very different stamp of man—though he has not too much to boast of in the way of character if all that’s said of him be true. The man we let go is a gaucho of the Pampas named Cruz. He delights in war, and has fought in the armies of Chili, Peru, and the Argentine Confederation without much regard to the cause of quarrel. In fact, wherever fighting is going on Cruz is sure to be there. Lately he has taken to the mountains, and now fights for his own hand.”

“And the other poor fellow who went over the precipice,” asked Lawrence, “did you know him?”

“I knew him slightly. Antonio is his name, I think, but he is a villain of no note—an inferior bandit, though quite equal to his captain, no doubt, in selfishness and cruelty.”

On arriving at the hut or small farm at the head of the valley, they found its owner, a burly, good-humoured Creole, alone with his mother, an old woman whose shrivelled-up appearance suggested the idea of a mummy partially thawed into life. She was busy cooking over a small fire, the smoke of which seemed congenial to her—judging from the frequency with which she thrust her old head into it while inspecting the contents of an iron pot.

There was plenty of room for them, the host said, with an air of profound respect for Pedro, whom he saluted as an old acquaintance. The house had been full two days before, but the travellers had gone on, and the only one who remained was a poor man who lay in an out-house very sick.

“Who is he?” asked Pedro, as he assisted Manuela to alight.

“I know not, senhor,” replied the host. “He is a stranger, who tells me he has been robbed. I can well believe it, for he has been roughly handled, and there are some well-known bandits in the neighbourhood. His injuries would not have been so serious, however, if he had not caught a fever from exposure.”

“Indeed,” returned the guide, who, however, seemed more interested in unsaddling his mules than in listening to the account of the unfortunate man, “was it near this that he fell in with the bandits?”

“No, senhor, it was far to the west. The travellers who brought him on said they found him almost insensible on the banks of a stream into which he appeared to have fallen or been thrown.”

Pedro glanced at Lawrence.

“Hear you that, senhor?”

“My Spanish only suffices to inform me that some one has been robbed and injured.”

Explaining fully what their host had said, Pedro advised Lawrence to visit the stranger in his medical character.

“My friend is a doctor,” he said, turning to the host, “take him to the sick man; for myself, I will put up the mules and then assist the old mother, for mountain air sharpens appetite.”

In a rude, tumble-down hut close to the main building Lawrence found his patient. He lay stretched in a corner on a heap of straw in a state of great exhaustion—apparently dying—and with several bandages about his cut and bruised head and face.

The first glance told Lawrence that it was Antonio, the robber whom he had tried to rescue, but he carefully concealed his knowledge, and, bending over the man, addressed him as if he were a stranger. The start and look of surprise mingled with alarm on the robber’s face told that he had recognised Lawrence, but he also laid restraint on himself, and drew one of the bandages lower down on his eyes.

Feeling his pulse, Lawrence asked him about his food.

He got little, he said, and that little was not good; the people of the farm seemed to grudge it.

“My poor man,” said Lawrence in his bad Spanish, “they are starving you to death. But I’ll see to that.”

He rose and went out quickly. Returning with a basin of soup, he presented it to the invalid, who ate it with relish. Then the man began to relate how he had been attacked a few days before by a party of robbers in one of the mountain passes, who had cut the throats of all his party in cold blood, and had almost killed himself, when he was rescued by the opportune arrival of some travellers.

Lawrence was much disgusted at first by the man’s falsehood. Observing the poor fellow’s extreme weakness, however, and his evident anxiety lest he should be recognised, the feeling changed to pity. Laying his hand gently on the man’s shoulder, he said, with a look of solemnity which perchance made, up to some extent for the baldness of the phraseology—

“Antonio, tell not lies; you are dying!”

The startled man looked at his visitor earnestly. “Am I dying?” he asked, in a low tone.

“You are, perhaps; I know not. I will save you if possible.”

These words were accompanied by a kind look and a comforting pat on the shoulder, which, it may be, did more for the sick man than the best of physic. At all events the result was a sudden grasp of the hand and a look of gratitude which spoke volumes. The robber was about to give vent to his feelings in speech when the door opened, and the burly host, putting his head in, announced that supper was ready.

Giving his patient another reassuring pat, the young doctor left him and returned to the banqueting-hall of the mountain farm, where he found that Manuela, Pedro, and Quashy were more or less earnestly engaged with the contents of the iron pot.

Chapter Five.
Lawrence and Quashy become “Flosuffical,” and they camp out beside the “Giant’s Castle.”

While the party were at supper the first gusts of a storm, which had for some time been brewing, shook the little hut, and before they had all fallen into the profound slumber which usually followed their day’s journey, a heavy gale was howling among the mountain gorges with a noise like the roaring of a thousand lions. For two days the gale raged so furiously that travelling—especially in the higher regions of the Andes—became impossible. The Indian girl, Pedro, and the negro, bore their detention with that stoicism which is not an infrequent characteristic of mountaineers, guides, and savages. As for our hero, he devoted himself and all his skill to his patient—to which duty he was the more reconciled that it afforded him a good opportunity at once for improving his Spanish and pointing out to the bandit the error of his ways.

To do the man justice, he seemed to be fully sensible of the young doctor’s kindness, and thanked him, with tears in his eyes, not only for his previous intention to save him from the tremendous fall over the cliff, but for his subsequent efforts to alleviate the evil consequences thereof.

It mattered nothing to the great warm-hearted, loose-jointed Englishman that when he mentioned these hopeful signs in his patient to Pedro, that worthy shook his head and smiled sarcastically, or that Quashy received the same information with a closing of the eyes and an expansion of the jaws which revealed the red recesses of his throat to their darkest deeps! Lawrence, being a man of strong opinions, was not to be shaken out of them either by sarcasm or good-humoured contempt.

Turning to the Indian girl for sympathy, he related the matter to her at a time when the other inhabitants of the hut had gone out and left them alone.

“You see,—Manuela,” he said, with the frown of meditation on his brow, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, “I have no belief in the very common idea that there is a soft spot in the heart of every man, however bad; but I do believe that the heart of the very worst of men may be made soft by the Spirit of God, and that He employs us, who call ourselves Christians, as His agents in bringing about the result. It is quite possible that I may have been thrown in the way of this robber for the very purpose of touching his heart through kindness—God’s own motive-power—and that the Spirit will soften his heart to receive the touch.”

He paused, and, withdrawing his gaze from the ceiling, observed that the girl’s eyes were fixed on his face with an expression of perplexity and earnestness.

It then suddenly occurred to him that, having spoken in English, she could not have understood him.

“But you do look as if you had some idea of what I have been saying, Manuela. Have you?”

“Si, senhor, some,” was the reply, as she dropped her eyes with an embarrassed look and blushed so as to make her pretty brown face look alarmingly red.

Endeavouring to convey the same ideas through the medium of Spanish, Lawrence made such a bungle of it that Manuela, instead of expressing sympathy, began to struggle so obviously with her feelings that the poor Englishman gave up the attempt, and good-naturedly joined his companion in a little burst of laughter. They were in the midst of this when the door opened and Quashy entered.

“You ’pears to be jolly,” observed the genial negro, with every wrinkle of his black visage ready to join in sympathetically, “was de jok a desprit good un?”

“Not very desperate, Quashy,” said Lawrence, “it was only my bad Spanish which made Manuela laugh. If you had been here to interpret we might have got on better with our philosophical discourse.”

“O massa!” returned the black—solemn remonstrance, both in manner and tone, putting to sudden flight the beaming look of sympathy—“don’t speak of me ’terpretin’ Spinich. Nebber could take kindly to dat stuff. Ob course I kin talk wid de peons an’ de gauchos, whose conv’sation am mostly ’bout grub, an’ hosses, an’ cattle, an’ dollars, an’ murder, but when I tries to go in for flosuffy, an’ sitch like, I breaks down altogidder.”

At this point the Indian girl’s tendency to laugh increased, but whether because of fresh views of the absurdity of what had passed, or because of some faint perception of the negro’s meaning, Lawrence had no power to decide.

“I should have thought, Quashy,” he said, with a return of his wonted gravity, “that a man of a thoughtful and contemplative turn of mind like you would have acquired the power of expressing almost any idea in Spanish by this time.”

“T’ank you for de compl’ment, massa,” replied Quashy, “but I not so clebber as you t’ink. Der am some tings in flosuffy dat beats me. When I tries to putt ’em afore oder peepil in Spinich, I somehow gits de brain-pan into sitch a conglomeration ob fumbustication dat I not able to see quite clar what I mean myself—dough, ob course, I knows dat I’m right.”

“Indeed!”

“Yis; but de great consolation I has is dat de peepil I’m talkin’ to don’t onderstand me a mossel better nor myself; an’, ob course, as noting in de wurl could show dem dey was wrong, it don’t much matter.”

“That is good philosophy, at all events. Isn’t it, Manuela?” asked Lawrence in Spanish.

“Si, senhor,” replied the girl, with sparkling eyes and a dazzling display of little teeth which seemed to indicate that she fully appreciated what was said.

“Strange,” thought Lawrence—“so grave and pensive, yet at times so sprightly; so intelligent, yet, of course, so ignorant; so very brown, and yet so pretty. What a pity she is not white!”

He only said, however, with a sigh, “Is the gale abating, Quashy?”

To which the negro replied, with a responsive sigh, “Yis, massa,—it am.”

After two days’ delay our travellers were enabled to proceed. While their host was busy saddling the mules Lawrence took Pedro aside.

“I am anxious about that bandit,” he said. “It is not his power of recovering I am afraid of, but our host’s willingness to take care of him.”

“Have you not spoken to him about it, senhor, and paid him in advance, like the good Samaritan?”

“Truly I have, but that does not secure fidelity in our host, and the man’s life may depend on his treatment during the next few days. I almost wish that we might delay our journey a little.”

“That cannot be,” returned Pedro, with decision. “Besides, it is unnecessary, for I have spoken to our host, and told him to take good care of the fellow.”

Lawrence could scarcely forbear smiling at the quiet assurance with which Pedro spoke.

“Surely,” he said, “you cannot count on his being influenced by your commands after you are gone?”

“Yes, senhor, I can count on that, for he knows me, and I occasionally pass this way.”

Pedro turned away as he spoke and went towards the mules, the fastenings of whose loads he carefully inspected. Lawrence went to look after his own animal with his mind much relieved, for the manner of Pedro was such as to inspire irresistible, almost blind, confidence.

During the first mile or two, as they rode along, our hero puzzled himself in a vain attempt to analyse the cause of this confidence. Was it the result of that imperturbable self-possession and invariable readiness of resource which marked the guide; or was it the stern truthfulness of his dark eyes, coupled with the retiring modesty and gravity of his demeanour? Perhaps it was the union of these characteristics. He could not tell.

While thus engaged in profound thought he was roused by Manuela riding alongside of him, and pointing upwards with animated looks while she exclaimed—

“See—look—senhor!”

Much surprised, for this was the first time during the journey that the girl had ventured to attract his attention, the youth looked in the direction indicated, and certainly the view that met his eyes was calculated to banish not only the surprise, but all other feelings save those of admiration of Nature and reverence for Nature’s God.

They had just rounded one of those rocky bluffs which so frequently interrupted their view during their upward journey, and had come upon a scene which they could not find words adequately to describe. As interjectional phrases alone could indicate something of their emotions to each other, so fragmentary sentences alone will convey a faint semblance of the truth to the intelligence of the reader.

Mountains, glens, and mighty cliffs; hideous precipices and yawning gulfs; snow-clad summits high above them, and rock-riven gorges far below. Distance upon distance ranging backward and upward to infinity, where all was mingled with cloudland; sunlit here, darkest shadowed there—wildness, weirdness, grandeur, and magnificence everywhere!

In the immediate foreground the serpentine path wound upward among rugged rocks, and the riders, picking their steps, as it were, midway up the face of a stupendous precipice, looked upward on the left at an apparently summitless wall, and downward on the right into an almost bottomless valley, through which a river roared as if mad with joy at having escaped its glacier-prison; though its roaring was softened well-nigh to silence by distance, while in appearance it seemed little larger than a silver thread.

“I could almost believe that to be a giant’s castle,” remarked Lawrence, pointing to the opposite side of the ravine, where a huge perpendicular mountain of porphyry was so broken into turrets, towers, and battlements, that it was difficult, except for its size, to believe it other than the work of man. There were even holes and formations about it that had the appearance of antique windows, gates, and drawbridges!

“Yes, it is a strange place,” said the guide, checking his mule; “moreover, we must spend the night under its shadow, for it is impossible to reach a better place of shelter to-night; and, by good fortune, yonder is something fresh for supper.”

Pedro pointed to a spot about seven or eight hundred yards distant, where a group of guanacos stood gazing at the intruders with profound attention.

“How will you get near enough for a shot?” asked Lawrence; “they will be gone before you can get across the ravine, and there is little or no cover.”

“You shall see,” said Pedro, cocking his rifle.

“But—but no weapon short of a cannon will carry so far—at least with accuracy,” exclaimed Lawrence in surprise, for at the time of which we write breech-loaders and the long-range weapons of precision had not been introduced in those regions. Indeed, the armies of South America, and of Europe also, still slew each other with the familiar Brown Bess and the clumsy flint-lock at that time.

Pedro paid no attention to the remark, but, dismounting, slowly raised the rifle to his shoulder. The guide was one of those men who seem to live in advance of their age. He had thought out, and carried out in a rough-and-ready manner, ideas which have since been scientifically reduced to practice. Being well aware that any projectile is drawn downward in its flight by the law of gravitation, and that if you want to hit a distant point you must aim considerably above it, he had, by careful experiment, found out how high above an object at a given distance one must aim in order to hit, and, by constant practice in judging distance, as well as in taking aim above his mark, he had attained to such skill as a long-range marksman that his friends almost believed it impossible for game to get beyond the range of his deadly weapon, and foes never felt easy till they were entirely out of his sight. The comparative slowness, too, of the flint-lock in discharging a rifle, had necessitated in him a degree of steadiness, not only while taking aim, but even after pulling the trigger, which rendered him what we might term statuesque in his action as he levelled his piece.

For a few seconds the rock beside him was not more steady. Then the cliffs burst into a fusillade of echoes, and the guanacos leaped wildly up the mountain-side, leaving one of their number on the rocks behind them.

It was some time before the young Englishman could get over his astonishment at this feat, for Pedro had pointed his weapon so high that he did not appear to be aiming at the animal at all, and he maintained an animated discussion with the mountaineer until they reached a part of the pass which proved to be somewhat dangerous.

And here they met with a party of muleteers crossing the mountains in the opposite direction. They were still far above them when first observed descending the same steep and narrow road.

“We will wait here till they pass,” said the guide, pulling up at a point where the width of the track was considerable. “I see by the escort that they carry something of value—probably bars of silver from one of the mines. They have reached the worst part of the pass. I shouldn’t wonder to see one of the mules go over—they often do.”

“And always get killed, I suppose,” said Lawrence.

“Not always. Now and then they have wonderful escapes, but many hundreds have been lost here. See!”