“Did you see what he has been doing?” said Cyril, as they were once more on the march.
“Been stopping to get something,” said Perry, “but I could not see what. Could you?”
“Ugh! Yes,” said Cyril, with a shudder of disgust. “He doesn’t want for us to be starved, but who’s going to eat mule?”
The tramp was long and tedious, but being no longer controlled by the pace of the baggage animals, the little party made far better progress than when they were making their way up the valley; yet the distance they had come was far greater than they had anticipated, and for long enough there was no sign of the Indians having passed that way. But they kept on, the colonel feeling convinced that they had passed no side ravine up which the mules could have been driven; while, having these animals at their command, the colonel felt certain that the Indians would not carry the loads.
At last, during the hottest part of the afternoon, a halt was called, and they made for a huge rock which overhung on one side, offering a tempting shade from the burning sun; but before they reached it Cyril uttered an eager cry.
“Look! look!” he said excitedly, and he pointed to where there were marks about a patch of herbage where the mules had been cropping the coarse stuff, as well as browsing upon some tufts of bushes, whose green twigs were bitten and broken off, and here and there leaves which had been dropped were still so fresh that it was evident that they could not long have been left.
This discovery, and a faint trace or two of the Indians having been with the mules, had a better effect upon the party than hours of rest. For they knew now that the treasured packs, containing not only the necessities upon which they depended for life, but the carefully-collected seed, were only a short distance ahead, and that if they pushed on with energy they ought to overtake them.
The rest depended upon the strong arms of the two men.
They went on then at once, but no fresh sign encouraged them, and at last the closing in of the ravine and the piled-up mountain in front warned them that they were approaching the gloomy chasm into which the river plunged. In fact, half an hour after, the deep booming roar of the fall began to be audible, as if coming from somewhere high up on the mountain-side.
“If it’s coming to a fight,” said Perry, “I hope it will not be in that deep cavernous place near the fall. I feel as if I hardly dare go down to it after what happened.”