The slope was gradual here, featured by dirt gullies leading down to a grassy valley, with the jungle beyond. As they followed the bed of one dry stream, Joe Nara pointed to the sparkle in its sands.
“That’s where I’ve picked up some of these,” he chuckled, bringing some small gold nuggets from his pocket and displaying them in his open hand. “But mostly I find them up some of the smaller stream beds. The gold just kind of oozes out of the mountain.”
Near the bottom of the slope was a shallow depression that nestled like a bowl in the curve of the mountainside.
“That’s where the lake was,” declared Nara. “The lake where El Dorado used to take a dip and come out all covered with gold. It’s dried up, now, but there’s still plenty of gold down in those sands.”
Mr. Brewster studied the lake bed carefully. Biff saw his father look beyond, as though following a sandy course that led down to the grassy area that fringed the jungle.
“You are probably right,” Mr. Brewster told Nara. “The lake was artificially formed, and once the dam was broken, the water found its way down into the jungle.”
“And it joined a stream there,” added Nara, “as I’ll show you. Do you know why this all happened?” Tilting his head, he darted one of his birdlike glances at Whitman, then back to Mr. Brewster. “I’ll tell you why. When the Indians found that the Spaniards and the English were going after El Dorado as well as after each other, they closed up shop.
“That’s what they did. Just closed up shop. They busted the dam and got rid of the lake, so nobody could find it. They covered over all the shafts so nobody could find them either. They started rumors about El Dorado being somewhere else, to send all the explorers on a wild-goose chase. Then they kept guard over the real El Dorado to scare away anybody who stumbled on it by mistake.”
“All quite logical,” agreed Mr. Brewster. “That is the way the Indians would act.” He turned to Whitman and asked: “You agree, don’t you, Hal?”
“I agree,” nodded Whitman. “Now I know why Nara showed us those shrunken heads. He did want to scare our bearers so they would run back to Santa Isabel. But it was because his Wai Wais would have made trouble if we brought a strange tribe here.”