Part 29 (2/2)
”Ah, no,” declared Carlos, ”it no dream. I see the gold--my father show me.”
We made up three parties for the search. Norris and Carlos went east; Captain Jean Marat and I west; Robert and Ray remained to watch by the stream.
Captain Marat and I picked our way through the forest to the west for the three miles, to the place where the sloping ground permitted an ascent to the heights backing the cliffs.
The climb was a stiff one, and there was no path or way cleared of the brush, and so were our difficulties increased. When we had gained a sufficient height we moved toward the east, intending to explore the region that looked down on the stream where were Robert and Ray. But we encountered cliffs again, above those other cliffs, that kept us off some miles to the back of that region we hoped to penetrate.
After a short stop at noon, for a bite of food out of our pockets, we continued moving eastward through the cedars that ornamented this new line of cliffs, towering so many hundreds of feet above those lying between us and Crow Bay. Now and then we got un.o.bstructed views of that region below, all forest-clad, and there seemed to be pits and basins there; but nowhere a slope permitting a descent. We got a view of the little bay where the _Pearl_ lay, but the distance (some seven or eight miles) was too great to permit us to distinguish the masts among the palms, even with the gla.s.ses that Captain Marat carried.
The afternoon was not far gone when we met Grant Norris and Carlos, who, by their report, had encountered practically the same conditions as we.
Except only that they had come upon a brook that disappeared into the hillside, a thing that Carlos declared was common enough in these mountains. But the direction of the stream was such as to suggest that it was the same rivulet that made its exit from the rocks right where Ray and Robert kept watch. Norris and Carlos had ascended this mountain brook above a mile, on the chance that it might bring them to some trail to the haunt of Duran. But they had met with no signs, and had at last taken to the heights.
”Now, I'll tell you, fellows,” observed Norris, ”I propose to follow up that creek some miles farther, tomorrow. I've been in more than one gold country, and that creek looks darned likely to me. I dug down at the edge with my hand, in a couple of places, and found black sand. If there isn't gold somewhere up that stream I miss my guess.”
”Well, the sun soon be getting low,” said Captain Marat. ”It is time we go back.”
The way Norris and Carlos had come was considered the shorter way back, so we took up the march, moving eastward. I was ahead with Carlos, and we hadn't taken many steps on our way, when I was startled by the sight of some furry object scampering up a cedar just below. Norris saw it too, and raised his rifle. It was then I got another view of the being, and reached out to stop Norris whose finger was on the trigger.
”Wait!” I cried. ”It's a monkey.”
Carlos, too, was surprised at the spectacle. He declared that he had never heard of monkeys inhabiting the island.
”It must be tame monkey,” he said.
The animal swung from a branch of the tree to that of the next, and soon disappeared over the edge of the cliff.
”Well then,” declared Norris, ”if he's tame, he's either got loose in town and wandered a long way off, or there are other people beside ourselves about here.”
No one had anything to add to Norris' observations, and we continued our return journey, little thinking that we were destined to see that monkey again.
We presently came to where descent was possible; and when the brook finally came in our way, I found much interest in the spot where the waters flowed into the hole in the rocks.
”It seems a queer freak,” I told Norris, ”that it should make its way through the hill like that.”
”It isn't the first time I have seen nature doing such stunts,” he returned. ”I guess volcanic action has had most to do with it.”
CHAPTER XXII
THE ISLE IN CROW BAY
We had barely got ourselves back to where Ray and Robert lay awaiting us, when night came. They had everything ready for the cooking of a meal, so that our bearish appet.i.tes had not long to suffer.
Our non-success did not sit heavily on us, and it was with some cheer we gathered round the fire, that was made in the midst of the underbrush, far enough from the stream to be invisible from any part of Duran's trail. Robert remained over there alone on watch.
”Now, I'll tell you,” said Ray, addressing Grant Norris, ”if you're going to find that gold mine, you'll just have to rig up a balloon, and fly all over these mountains--like I did in my dream.”
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