"The nearest, señor, is on the other branch of the Palcazu—the river we followed till we entered the passes—and is about thirty miles to the north. The pass starts from a spot about fifteen miles above the junction, and goes up to Huaca, a place that is little more than ten miles south of Huanuco. From Huaca we could either follow the road to Cerro, or strike across the Western Cordilleras to Aguamiro."
"Then I think, Dias, that our best plan will be to go down again into the valley we left yesterday morning, and then strike across for the mouth of this pass you speak of. You know the direction?"
"I know the general direction, although I have never been along there."
"Well, Dias, you must be the guide. I should say the sooner we start the better. My idea is this: If you with your wife and José will start at once, so as to be down the pass before it gets dark, my brother and I will remain here. You will leave our riding mules at the point where the track is good enough for us to gallop on."
"We should not like to leave you, señor," Maria said.
"I have not the least fear of their attacking us, and with our rifles and double-barrelled guns and pistols we could beat them off if they did. I can't see any better way of getting out of this scrape, and am quite willing to adopt this plan."
"I don't see any other way, señor," Dias said. "The plan is a good one; but I wish I could stay here with you."
"But that would be impossible, Dias, for there would be no chance of our finding the mouth of this pass by ourselves."
"Why could we not all go together?" Maria asked.
"Because if there were no one here the brigands might discover that we had gone, within an hour or so of our starting. They might fire a shot or two, and, finding that we did not answer, crawl gradually down till they got here, for it must seem possible to them that we should return down the pass; and as there is no getting the baggage mules to go fast, we might very well be overtaken—I don't mean by those eight men, but by a considerable number."