Perry started, and Cyril’s face looked in the firelight as if it was flushed.
“Where’s the colonel?” he said quickly. “Be steady, Perry, old chap. There’s nothing to be frightened about. Don’t look as if anything was the matter. Come and find your father, and let’s go and speak to Diego and the other man.”
“But I can’t speak to them,” said Perry excitedly.
“Never mind, I will. Come along.”
“And suppose they shoot at us,” whispered Perry, “with an arrow or blowpipe?”
“They’d better!” said Cyril grimly. “But they won’t do that. Come on.”
He walked on toward the fire, behind which the two Indians were crouched, apparently enjoying the warmth and the charqui they were munching; but they gazed furtively up at the two boys as they came up, and one of them started slightly as Cyril made a sudden stoop, but became impassive directly when the boy picked up two or three half-burned brands and threw them into the middle of the fire before holding his hands out to the flame.
“The waterfall makes it feel cold up here, and damp,” he said to the guide in his patois, and the man smiled as he spoke, and then pointed up a defile away above them as he replied.
“What does he say?” asked Perry.
“That the wind comes down that narrow rift from the snow, and it is that which makes it cold. I only half understand him.”