“Well, what is it?” cried the colonel impatiently.
“Don’t you see, father?” cried Perry excitedly; “the Indians must have crept in while we slept. They have carried everything away.”
“What?” raged out the colonel as he looked wildly round where his servant was holding up the lantern, and then he uttered a groan.
For it was too true. Every pack had gone, and with them the possibility of holding out against the cunning enemy who had been in their midst.
The same thoughts came to each of the boys—thoughts of all they had heard before setting out, of those who ventured into the mountains in search of the Incas’ treasures never being heard of more, and a curious chilling feeling of despair came over them.
Would they ever see home again?
But the colonel was not the man to give way to despair. The position was terrible—right out there amid the gigantic mountains, with the only roads through them those naturally formed by the torrents in the wild deep gorges, shut in by precipices of the most stupendous nature, with no other guide than their compass, and surrounded by enemies who might at any moment make an attack; while, so far from being able to make a prolonged defence now, the Indians had robbed them of the means.
This was the position as it struck them all at first, but the colonel gave it a different aspect directly.
“Council of war,” he said cheerily, as he led the way out into the sunshine, and sat down upon a block of stone. “Come, Perry lad, a soldier’s son must not look like that as soon as he is face to face with difficulties. John Manning will tell you that he and I have been in worse straits than this up in the hill-country.—Eh, Manning?”
“Of course, sir. This is nothing. Such a fine morning, too. Why, if the snow lay twenty foot deep, as we’ve seen it, and we didn’t know whether we had any fingers or toes, we might begin to holler.”