This done, Pete threw the rope down to us, then it was made fast to my waist and I began to climb, Pete hauling in the slack as I advanced, finding the way giddy but easy to climb. The danger was a slip upon the mossy rocks, wet with the fine spray which rose from the awful watery pit below.
But the touch of the rope gave confidence, and in a few minutes I was by Pete’s side, ready to throw down the rope to Cross, who came up with the sure-footedness of a sailor. Then the packs were hauled up, and my uncle followed.
Our task was not yet done, for we had to take to the river again, just beyond the edge of the fall, a hundred feet above where we had waded before, and found ourselves in a narrow gorge with almost perpendicular sides covered with tree, bush, creeper, and wonderful ferns, all made glorious by the sunshine and blue sky.
The water was shallow, and we made fair progress, always looking the while for some way out of the gorge, whose beauties tempted us to linger, for we were once more among flowers, insects, and birds, one of the first of which sailed slowly overhead and across the gorge—an eagle with widespread pinions.
“Out of shot,” said my uncle, as we stood knee-deep watching the large bird till it floated right out of sight.
“And not the sort of specimen we want, if it were in, uncle,” I said.
“Quite right, Nat. Look yonder at the finches and those lovely blue creepers; but they’re not what we want.”
“No, uncle,” I said; “I’m looking for what we do want. Ought not the quetzals to be found in a place like this?”
“We are in their region, Nat,” he replied, “and that is all I can say. We know so little about them, the skins having been mostly supplied by the Indians. But these rocks and patches of timber ought to be their home.”
“There’s a place, sir, where we might climb up out of this hollow,” said Cross just then, and he pointed to a mere gash in the rocks, down which a tiny rivulet trickled.