The Treasure of the Incas: A Story of Adventure in Peru

by G. A. Henty

Harry laughed.

"It is only what every settler who builds himself a hut in the backwoods must feel, Bert. It is the work of every wood-cutter and charcoal-burner; it is a good deal like the work of every miner. You have been brought up too soft, my boy."

"Soft be hanged!" the lad said indignantly; "it is the first time I have heard that the life of an apprentice on board a ship was a soft one. I have no doubt you feel just as bad as I do."

"But you don't hear me grumbling, Bert; that is all the difference. I expect that, of the two, I am rather the worse, for my bones and muscles are more set than yours, and it is some years now since I pulled at either a rope or an oar."

Bertie was silent for a minute or two, and then said rather apologetically:

"Well, Harry, perhaps I need not have grumbled so much, but you see it is a pretty rough beginning when one is not accustomed to it. We ought to have had a short job to begin with, and got into it gradually, instead of having six hours on end; and I expect that the backwoods settler you were talking about does not work for very long when he first begins. If he did he would be a fool, for he certainly would not be fit for work for a week if he kept on till he had nearly broken his back and taken the whole skin off his hands by working all day the first time he tried it."

"There is something in that, Bertie; and as we are in no extraordinary hurry I do think we might have been satisfied with felling the trees to-day, and cutting off the branches and getting them into place to-morrow. Still, as Dias seemed to make nothing of it, I did not like to knock off at the very start."

"The meal is ready, señor," Maria said, "and I think we had better eat it at once, for the sky looks as if we were going to have rain."

"And thunder too," Dias said. "You had better begin; José and I will picket the mules and hobble the llamas. If they were to make off, we should have a lot of trouble in the morning."

The aspect of the sky had indeed changed. Masses of cloud hung on the tops of the hills, and scud was flying overhead.