Real Gold: A Story of Adventure

“Where?” said Perry, staring.

“Down yonder for a wash,” said the colonel merrily; and, leading the way, they descended the precipitous slope to where the stream ran thundering by, reaching first a place where it was not above a couple of yards across.

“Why, I thought it would be bigger than this,” said Perry, “from the noise it makes.”

“Bigger than you think, my lad,” said the colonel. “There is an enormous amount of water going by here. I daresay that crack is a hundred feet deep. Look at the speed at which it runs.”

“Yes, it seems to run fast.”

“Seems!” cried the colonel. “Here, give me your hand. Don’t be afraid. Stop a moment; roll up your sleeve above your elbow. That’s it. Set your feet fast, and trust to me.”

The boy obeyed, and after making sure of his own footing, the colonel let his son sink down sidewise till he was nearly horizontal, and could plunge his arm right into the stream above the elbow.

It was a strange sensation for the boy to be sinking lower and lower, gazing in the gloom at that rushing, glassy water, which, as it darted along, carried with it another stream – one of air, which blew his hair about and felt icily-cold, but nothing to compare with the water into which he plunged his arm.

The shock was electric. It was as if he received a blow from a mass of ice which numbed him, and gave his limb a sudden snatch and drag to draw it from the socket.

Perry gave a gasp, and pulled his arm out of the torrent.

“Ugh!” he ejaculated. “It’s freezing.”

“Yes; would you like a plunge in?”

“What! there, father? It would sweep me away.”

“Yes, if you were a thousand times as strong, my lad. The force is tremendous. Come along here.”

He led the way upwards to where there was a fall of some few feet, and at the side a shallow pool of the water, wonderfully round, and forming a basin, giving them ample room for their ablutions; after which, fresh and glowing, they climbed up past the mules to where the breakfast was waiting, the hot coffee, bread, and frizzled charqui, or dried beef, being partaken of with an appetite Perry had never felt before.

Then the remains were packed up, the squealing mules loaded, and they started once more; now rising a thousand feet, now descending, but always following the stream deeper and deeper into the mountains, till the grandeur and weird sternness of the gorge’s defiles through which they passed grew monotonous, so that at the end of two days Perry began to long for some change and the open sunshine, away from the tremendous precipices which closed them in, and, in spite of the elasticity of the air, had sometimes a strangely depressing effect.

John Manning felt it, evidently, and sought every opportunity of keeping Perry by his side, so as to have a good grumble about the colonel.

“I don’t know what he could be thinking about, Master Perry, to come to such a place as this. It’s the world’s end, I say. We shan’t have a bit o’ shoe to our foot when we’ve gone a bit farther.”

“Why don’t you ride more, then?” said Perry. “You’ve got a mule on purpose.”

“What!” said John Manning, turning sharply round, “ride that mule? No, thankye, sir. I’ve seen him kick. I’m not going to give him a chance to send me over his head down into one of them cracks. I believe some of them go right through the world. Look at this one now. I can’t see no bottom to it – can you?”

He pointed down into the deep chasm along one of whose sides the rough path led.

“No, not from here,” said Perry, glancing down, and wondering at the absence of giddiness.

“Nor from anywhere else, sir,” grumbled the man. “Why, if any one told me that if you dropped down there, you’d come out somewhere by Simla, I should believe him, for I know they go right through.”

“Nonsense!” said Perry, laughing. “There, father’s beckoning to me.”

It was evening once more, and they were coming again to an opening among the lower mountains, where they would halt for the night. In fact, half an hour later the leading Indian checked his mule in a bowl-shaped hollow, where there was a dense little wood of goodly-sized trees, and a thread-like fall of water came curving down into a mossy basin, while the whole place was brightened by the reflection from the mountains, made dazzling now by the setting sun.

The preparations were made for the evening meal with quite military precision; the arms were placed near the fire, and, as if in imitation, the two Indians placed together their long stave-like blowpipes and bows and arrows, before helping to unload the mules, and then sitting down patiently to administer snuff to each other, and wait to be asked to join the meal.

“It’s very awkward, Perry, my lad,” said the colonel suddenly. “We ought to have had a guide who could understand us more easily.”

“It is awkward, father,” said Perry.

“Come and help me now, and between us we may make the man comprehend.”

Perry followed to where the Indians were squatting down in their loose cotton smock-frock-like garments, and at a sign the leader rose.

“The other man – where is the other man?” said the colonel in Spanish; but the Indian gazed at him vacantly, till in a fit of inspiration Perry repeated his father’s words as nearly as he could, and then began to count, laughing as he said in Spanish, “One – two” – and gave an inquiring tone to the word “three,” as if asking for it.

The man smiled and pointed to the ground as he answered, and then closed his eyes and let his head fall over upon one hand.

“What does he mean by that, father?” said Perry.

“I can’t tell, my boy, unless he wants to show us that the other man is coming while we sleep.”

They tried again, but could get no farther. The Indian grew excited at last and voluble, making gestures too, pointing forward and then at the ground, ending by pointing at them in turn, throwing himself down and pretending to sleep.

“I give it up,” said the colonel, turning away towards the fire; “but we must try to learn their language as fast as we can, or we shall never get through our journey.”

A good meal near the fire, whose glow was comfortable enough up at the height they now were, and then father and son strolled a little way about their camp, the wood proving very attractive; but the darkness soon closed in, and they began to return toward the fire, which glowed brightly and cast the shadows of the Indians against the rock-wall as they sat prolonging their meal.

“What is John Manning doing eating with them?” said the colonel suddenly. “I told him he was to keep those men in their places. They are my paid servants while – ”

“He’s over yonder,” said Perry, interrupting his father, “stacking guns together, I think.”

“Nonsense!” said the colonel; “there he is, sitting with the Indians, eating.”

“He can’t be, father; I can see him over there.”

“But look, boy, there are three shadows against the cliff.”

“One – two – yes, there are three shadows,” said Perry dubiously; “but it is something to do with the fire.”

“Absurd, my lad; there are three shadows cast by three men sitting there.”

“I know,” cried Perry excitedly; “that is what the Indian meant – that the third fellow would be here to-night to sleep, or while we slept.”

“To be sure,” cried the colonel, in a tone full of satisfaction. “I’m glad of it, not but what we could have got on without him, for the mules go well enough, but because it proves the guide to be trusty and a man of his word.”

Chapter Five

Perry is Startled

The guide came to the colonel smiling as soon as he saw him seated, and pointed to; the other side of the fire, as he spoke words which evidently announced the coming of the promised assistant.

The colonel replied in Spanish, and the Indian went back to his companions. Soon after, the smell from John Manning’s pipe rose on the cool night-air, and Perry sat talking to his father in a questioning mood.