They pitched their shelter-tent, lighted a fire, and ate a hearty supper of food they had carried from Chicla; then, after talking for an hour, they went to sleep, lying close together, wrapped in both blankets, for the night was cold.
CHAPTER II.
THE MONTAÑA OF PERU.
Early next morning the three adventurers were awakened by a mournful cry. A long, shrill note sounded near the shelter-tent and was followed by three others, each deepening in tone. They sat up and rubbed their eyes, then looked at one another, as if to ask, “What is that?”
Again the long, shrill note, and again the three mournful echoes, each deeper than the one preceding.
“What a ghostly noise!” said Hope-Jones.
“Oh, I know what it is!” exclaimed Harvey, rising, his face brighter. “It’s the alma perdida.”
“Alma perdida! That’s the Spanish for ‘lost soul.’”
“Exactly. That’s why the bird has such a name, because of its cry. It’s an alma perdida—a bird, that is piping so dolefully. Come, see if I am not correct.”
He pushed aside the flap of the shelter-tent, sprang without, and was followed by the young men. In the light of early day they saw a little brown bird, a tuft of red on its head, perched on a scrub bush, not a hundred yards away. Even as they looked the shrill note was repeated, and then the doleful ones of deeper sound.
“Shoo!” said Ferguson; and as the bird remained perched on the bush, he threw a stone. The red-tufted body of brown rose from the branch and disappeared.