Vainly he wished now that he had had another day with Morrison at Panama. The valley of the glacier was between Punta Reale, which he located on the map, and the tiny settlement of La Carolina, over a hundred miles farther south. This was all the sailing guide he had; but from Morrison’s account, and Carroll’s, the valley of the glacier gate was sufficiently conspicuous so that no one skirting the coast could pass it by.
Now that he was moving again, depending solely on himself, no longer groping in the dark, courage and energy came back. He was gambling his bottom dollar now. This expedition would take all the money he had left; but he was ready to risk it all, and his life as well, rather than be beaten. Speed was all he longed for now.
The speed was fairly satisfactory to Concepcion, where he had to change trains, and wait half the night. Moving out through the gray dawn, he saw that he was in a new sort of country. Away to the left rose the mountains, steep, heavily timbered slopes, with now and again, far away, a glimpse of an ice peak.
There were strips of stumpy clearings along the track, burned slashes, backwoods farms, log cabins, berry bushes and rail fences, so that he might have fancied himself in Vermont, but for the squat Chilenos and brown Indians in ponchos that crowded the car, and the chatter of Spanish and Araucanian mixing with the rattle of the slow-moving train.
For there was not much speed now. They stopped interminably at primitive stations, where there seemed no reason to stop at all. He snatched a vile snack at a wayside eating house at noon; another at dark, and night found them still jolting and clattering feebly down the line to Valdivia.
It was cold in Valdivia, where again he had to wait for hours. He had time to buy a heavy suit, boots, a woollen poncho, and, by an afterthought, a small automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. It was the first time Lang had ever carried weapons, and the hard lump at his hip gave him an odd feeling of uneasiness and of adventure.
After Valdivia the railway frankly became a one-track frontier line, the train a mixed one of freight and passenger coaches, slower than ever. The mountains had come up closer and higher, veiled generally by drifting mist, and it rained in torrents all one afternoon while they trailed along the rusty pair of rails at a speed that seemed slow for an omnibus.
Lang, fuming with impatience, could not talk with his fellow passengers, who glanced at him with suspicion. He was already far behind his planned schedule; he was hungry, thirsty, tired, nervous and irritable. He tried to snatch a doze on the cane seats; he got out and walked about at the endless stops to load lumber or cattle; and it was almost with astonishment that he found himself actually and finally deposited at Puerto Montt, the end of the railway, more than three days after he had left Valparaiso.
It was evening and raining. He made his way over plank sidewalks into the grubby little town, where he was surprised and relieved to find German spoken as currently as Spanish. He could make more headway in that language, and he established himself at one of the two hotels which had a German manager, though he had unfortunately lapsed into Chilean methods of hotel keeping.
It was too late for any researches that night, but his host reassured him. At Valparaiso no one had ever heard of Punta Reale or La Carolina, but here they knew all about it. The fishing fleet went to La Carolina, and the German landlord was sure he would find plenty of boats, plenty of men to take him.