CHAPTER XIX
The Spider and the Fly
The sun came warmly out of a clear sky as they filed out of the sleeping town. To the natives and the guide they passed readily enough as American prospectors and so excited no great amount of interest. The first stage of their journey was as pleasant as a holiday excursion. Their course lay through the wooded foothills which lie between the shore and the barren desert. The Cordilleras majestic, white capped, impressive, are, nevertheless, veritable hogs. They drink up all the moisture and corral all the winds from this small strip which lies at their feet. Scarcely once in a year do they spare a drop of rain for these lower planes. And so within sight of their white summits lies this stretch of utter desolation.
It was not until the end of the first day’s journey that they reached this barren waste. To the Spanish looters this strip of burning white, so oddly located, must have seemed a barrier placed by Nature to protect her stores of gold beyond. But it doubtless only spurred them on. They passed this dead level in a day and a half of suffocating plodding, and so reached the second lap of their journey.
The trail lies broad and smooth along the lower ranges, for, even neglected as it has been for centuries, it still stands a tribute to the marvelous skill of those early engineers. The two men trudged on side by side climbing ever higher in a clean, bracing atmosphere. It would have been plodding work to any who had lesser things at stake, but as it was the days passed almost as in a dream. With each step, Wilson felt his feet growing lighter. There was a firmness about his mouth and a gladness in his eyes which had not been there until now.
On the third day they reached the highest point of the trail and started down. Both men had felt the effects of the thin air during the last twelve hours and so the descent came as a welcome relief. They camped that night among trees and in an atmosphere that relieved their tired lungs. They also built the first fire they had lighted since the start and enjoyed a hot meal of coffee and toasted porkscraps. They found the steep downward trail to be about as difficult as the upward one, as they were forced to brace themselves at every step. By night they had come to the wooded slopes of the table-lands below, supported by the mighty buttresses of the Andes. It was a fair land in which they found themselves––a land which, save for the vista of snow-capped summits and the lesser volcanic peaks, might have passed for a fertile Northern scene. It was at about sunset that they stopped and Gaspar, the guide, pointed to a spindle lava top against the sky.
“Up there,” he informed them, “is the lake of Guadiva. Some say it is there that the great treasure lies.”
“So? What treasure?” asked Stubbs, innocently.