Part 3 (2/2)

For a week or two after Esob's return to camp matters went very iven Butler a wholesoht, or that the conviction had been forced upon the latter that he had been outrageously exacting, there was nothing to show, but certain it was that, for a while, Esob was allowed to take his own time over his work and do it his oith the result that while this state of affairs lasted the lad actually took pleasure in, nay, thoroughly enjoyed, his work But on the third week after his return Harry began to detect signs that these agreeable conditions were drawing to an end Thenceforth Butler allowed hi and autocratic ways, until at length life in the caatory for everybody concerned, Butler himself included, the natural result of his tyrannical conduct being that everybody--Harry excepted--did everything in his power to thwart him, while even the lad himself ceased to atte his chief

In this unpleasant and unsatisfactory manner the railway survey proceeded for the twoEsob's return to duty; by which time Butler's behaviour had becoinally engaged had deserted, notwithstanding the fact that their desertion involved thees that, to these humble toilers, represented quite a little fortune, and their places had been filled by others of a much less desirable type in every way And this was all the retted since the surveyors were now in the very heart of the mountains, where the natural difficulties to be contended ere at their worst, while the newcoe to such work, had to be taught their duties, down to the simplest detail, under the most adverse conditions possible It can be readily understood that the attenorant, stupid, sullen, and lawless half-castes under such conditions was a task of surpassing difficulty, resulting in constant acute friction, and dement and the utmost diplomacy upon the part of the teachers Harryto his assistance an almost subli time either--co pupils and brought a change in theiras it was satisfactory Butler, however, knew not theof the word ”patience”, nor did his character contain the smallest particle of that valuable quality; his h-and-ready”, and consisted in e every order, and ite, therefore, that the relations between hirew more strained

It hen the tension between Butler on the one hand and the peons on the other had developed to such an extent that the labourers had been goaded into a state of almost open mutiny, that the for, accompanied by a half-dozen of the new hands, to seek for and stake out a few miles farther of practicable route Such a duty as this he usually contrived to complete in time to return to the ca the line until he encountered Harry, when he would spend the re the poor lad's life a burden to hi he did, frequently insisting upon having some particularly aard and difficult piece of work done over again

Consequently the progress of the survey was abnorly slow; and when, upon the day in question, Butler failed to put in an appearance on the scene of operations, young Esob's first feeling was one of gratification, for he was just then engaged upon an exceptionally difficult task which he wasinterfered with So absorbed was the lad in his work that he had not ht to spare for speculation as to the reason for so unusual a piece of good luck, although it is true that, as the afternoon wore on, he did once or twice permit hiht touch of indisposition, or possibly a sprained ankle, for this unexpected and th, upon his arrival in camp at the conclusion of his day's survey work, he learned, to his astonishment, that neither Butler nor his party of peons had returned, the i serious had happened, and ry assistants, and providing them with lanterns, ropes, and other aids to a search, he led the the survey line in quest of the absent ones

For a distance of nearly twoparty was easily followed, beingthe line chosen by Butler as that to be surveyed by Esob It ended at the foot of a precipitous slope of bare rock towering aloft sohts beyond it Here the searchers were brought to an abrupt halt, for Harry was fully aware that no sane engineer would for a singlean ordinary railway up that rocky acclivity, while it ell understood that the rack system of construction was to be avoided, if possible, upon the score of expense The probability was that Butler, upon reaching this point, and finding himself confronted by the necessity to make a wide detour, or, alternatively, to consider the question of a tunnel, had struck off, either to the right or to the left, on a tour of investigation; and there was the chance that, becos, he had decided to caht rather than risk an accident by atteround But this was a question which Harry felt ought to be settled forthwith, and he accordingly issued instructions to his peons to search for the spoor of the party and follow it up To find the spoor was a very easy matter, for the last stake had been driven in coround, and despite the fact that it was by this tiht of the lanterns, disclosed the hoof prints of Butlers horse, which led off to the left, and which were followed until the searchers found the on hard, steeply rising ground over which it was impossible to trace further the trail in the darkness This impossibility once realised, the search was abandoned for the night, and Harry very reluctantly gave the word for a return to camp, which was reached about nine o'clock

At daybreak the nextthe ca with theain set out upon their quest,their way direct to the spot where the trail had been lost on the previous night, where it was again picked up without ht toward the heart of the wood, and was folloith ever-increasing difficulty, for a distance of about three-quarters of a round, nor were the utain After carefully considering the situation, therefore, Esob detailed onethe ree of a man whom he believed he could trust, with instructions to search the wood thoroughly, returned to the outskirts of the ti at the spot where the trail entered it, proceeded, with the assistance of the Indian, to encircle the wood, carefully exaround as they went, in the hope that, if Butler and his party had passed through the tied on its other side, the Indian would succeed in picking up the spoor But the hope was vain, for the as co the entire day--without the discovery of the faintest trace or sign of the passage of the , for when the far side of the as reached the soil proved to be of so stony a character, thickly interspersed with great outcrops of rock, that even the ht have been excused for failing in the search for footprints on so unyielding a surface It was a little puzzling to Harry that not even the horse had left any trace behind hi the party who had been detailed to search the interior of the wood, it was discovered that the animal had been found by the aie as the soil there afforded Upon the horse being brought to hilishman--mindful of the scarcely concealed hatred which Butler had, almost wantonly, as it seemed, aroused in the breasts of the peons--is to a n of possible violence, but nothing of the kind could be found, and the only result of the exa pointed, that Butler had, for some reason, voluntarily dismounted and at least temporarily abandoned the ani for full twenty-four hours, and Harry speedily arrived at two conclusions which inexorably led him to a third The first conclusion at which he arrived was that the peons who had accompanied his chief, accustomed as they had been from their earliest childhood to make their way about the country, were so little likely to have lost their way that that theory ly abandoned; the second was that Butler would certainly not have absented hiht and a day, and that therefore--this was the third conclusion--so The next problem that presented itself for solution was: What was it that had gone wrong? Had the entire party met with an accident? It was ether, and in the event of an accident, surely at least one of the seven would have escaped and returned to the caands? When Harry put this question to the peons who reood-naturedly and assured that, in the first place, there were no brigands in Peru, so far as they were aware; and, in the second place, that if perchance there were they would probably not have contented the off seven men, six of ould be only an encumbrance to them, but would almost certainly have attacked and sacked the caht, when it was left comparatively unprotected There was but one other probable alternative of which Harry could think, and that was that Butler's peons, exasperated at length beyond endurance by some fresh piece of petty tyranny on the whiteoff their eed upon hiht be able to secure payes due to them But when Esob submitted this alternative to his peons for their consideration and opinion, they shook their heads and emphatically declared that they did not believe that any such thing had happened

And when further asked for their opinion as to what had happened, they simply answered that they did not knohat to think But to Harry it seemed that there was a certain lack of spontaneity in this reply, which caused him to doubt whether the speakers were quite sincere in so saying

With a very heavy load of responsibility thus unexpectedly thrown upon his shoulders, the young English upon as the proper course for him now to pursue, and he finally ca ascertained beyond much possibility of doubt that his chief had been abducted, the next thing to be done was to discover whither and under what circumstances he had been carried off, and then to take the necessary steps to effect his rescue On the following , therefore, he mustered the peons who still re to them his theory of an abduction, dispatched six of them in asparty, offering a substantial reward to the one who should bring him such infor whitea couple of sure-footed mules, set off in cohbourhood, in the hope of obtaining so party from some of the people by whom that particular part of the country was sparsely inhabited And in order to avoid the loss of tiht, he took with hi to carry out as exhaustive a search as possible in that space of time

Thus far the search had been prosecuted entirely in a forward direction; but at the lastout upon his three days' quest, it suddenly occurred to Esob that thetheir way toward the sea coast, so in order to test the value of this theory he deter the line of the survey and see whether he could discover any traces of them in that direction

At this time the surveyors were in the heart of an exceptionally difficult tract of country, where the obstacles to rapid ere such that, since Harry's return to duty after his adventures in the _quebrada_, they had not advanced very much more than twenty miles from that spot; thus it was still early in the afternoon of the first day when he found hi down into the abyss, wherein he had so narrowly escaped a terrible death By a natural association of ideas he no sooner beheld the scene so indelibly engraven upon his hts reverted to Cachama, his kind-hearted old Indian nurse, and her son Yupanqui, and he vaguely wondered whether perhaps either of these estion that would assist hiht of it the th he caht as well prosecute his search in the direction of their cave as in any other, and he forthwith couide, who, somewhat to Esob's surprise, at once admitted that he ell acquainted with Cachalishman to the cave in which the two resided, by a short route, if Harry would consent to be blindfolded during their passage of certain portions of the way To this the lad readily agreed--for he was by this tily anxious on Butler's account--and thereupon the Indian, having hobbled the mules, demanded Harry's pocket--handkerchief and immediately proceeded to blindfold the owner therewith, after which, with joined hands, the pair resu for two full hours or round Then the pocket-handkerchief was re in the midst of a number of enormous fallen boulders at the foot of a stupendous cliff, and facing an opening in the latter which had all the appearance of being the mouth of a cavern But by what route he had arrived at the spot he could not tell, for he was so completely hemmed in on every side by the boulders in thelandscape was co visible save the boulders and the face of the cliff with the opening in it

That he was correct in his sur was a cavern was now deuide, who said:

”Be pleased to take ain, Senor, and folloithout fear

This is one of several entrances to the cavern in which Cacharound smooth and even for almost the entire distance, and presently we shall find torches by which to light our way”

And so, as aso Esob's hand, was heard groping about in the darkness, and aof dry branches reached the lad's ears

”Now, Senor,” caraciously condescend to produce fire by means of those sht to guide our steps”

So said, so done; and as the torch kindled and blazed up the pair found thee soh, with a perfectly sht of the torch, presented the appearance of having been brought into this condition by huency It was not only smooth, but also level at the point where they stood But even as they started to resu the way--Harry saw that it alan to dip, and ere they had advanced many paces the dip beca flight of roughly hewn steps, at first broad and shallow, but rapidly steepening, until they became so narrow and deep as to necessitate a considerable aht seemed interh the lad did not time himself--the descent appeared to have occupied considerably th they oncethe steps behind thee, the air in which sed to squeeze their painful way between long, spiky stalactites and stalag upward Harry counted these; there were only one hundred and twenty-three of them, and they were not nearly so steep as the others; and then they ceased, and the pair ca which they passed for about half aa spacious chalish them with a torch in her hand

It was perfectly evident that the old lady was intensely angry, for upon the appearance of her visitors she darted toward the her fist furiously in the face of the Indian--whom, by the way, she addressed as Arie words, the virulence of which could be pretty accurately estimated by the effect which they produced upon their recipient, for poor Arih they had been the lash of a whip For fully ten minutes the old woman storh want of breath, and then the Indian got his chance to reply, and apparently vindicate himself, for, as he proceeded hat appeared to Esob to be his explanation, Cacharadually subsided until she beca white man, which she did with more cordiality than her previous outburst had led him to expect

”Welcome back to my poor ho, and aed h he knew that it is forbidden to reveal that way, or even the fact of its existence, to strangers He tells ent, and that he adopted the precaution of blindfolding you so that you ht not learn the secret of the approach, therefore I will let the matter pass, especially as I feel certain that I have but to express the wish and you will forget that such a way exists”

”Certainly I will, Mama Cachao, and I should be an ingrate indeed if I refused to conform to your wishes in so simple a matter as that But I understood you to say that you kneas co to you! How on earth could you possibly know that? I didn't know it o!”

”Did not I tell you that I possess the gift of foreknowledge?” remarked Cachama somewhat i to me than I became aware of it; nay, I even knew the way by which you were coered me, for I knew that you could not visit the cave by the secret approach except with the help of one of us! But let that pass Followroom, where I have provided aof it you may tell me in what manner you think I can assist you”

Ten minutes later Esob once more found hi of ato his hostess betweento the disappearance of Butler and his party of peons He brought his recital to a close by enquiring whether Cacha ones

”No,” said Cachama ”They have not passed near here, or Yupanqui would certainly have seen so of them and mentioned the fact to me But you have done well to coe indeed if I cannot help you You wish to knohat has become of the Senor whom you call Butler; is not that so? Very well Seat yourself there before me, hold my two hands in yours, and recall to your mind as vividly as possible all the circumstances, be they ever so trivial, that you can res of the day upon which the Senor disappeared, beginning with the in, for I a matters in such a way that she and Esob could sit facing each other, knee to knee and with their hands clasped, she leaning slightly back in a reclining posture, with her eyes upturned toward the invisible roof of the cavern As she finished speaking the young English of two days ago,with theto continue, if need were, to that otherfruitless search in the pine wood, he cast himself on that same bed at the end of the day and, completely exhausted, sank to sleep