“He must have been a hopeful young party if he ever figured on doing it by his lonesome,” commented Billy, “unless he was some sort of a giant.”
“Maybe he had some magic words he chanted over it like:
“Eeny, meeny, minney mo,” suggested Harry, solemnly chanting the mystic rhyme, as if he half expected to see the rock swing back in response.
“Yes—or open sesame,—like in the Arabian Nights,” scornfully remarked Billy. “Come on, let’s quit it. It will be dark before we get back to camp if we don’t hurry.”
“We certainly have had a fine day’s work for nothing. Just to think that we’ve got to pack all this stuff back to camp with us after all instead of using it to explore the Toltec Caves of Treasure Cliff,” cried Harry, speaking the last words in a highly melodramatic tone.
“You’re a fine old fraud,” he yelled at the unmoved quesal,—looking down from the cliff, with its sunken eye, as it had gazed for almost uncounted centuries. “If I could get up there I’d fix you so as you wouldn’t fool anyone else. I’ll just take a chuck at you for luck anyway. That old unwinking orb of yours irritates me.”
As he spoke the lad stooped down and selected a large flat stone and flung it full at the carved figure with the down-pointing beak.
“Bang in the eye;” he shouted, “give me a walking-stick, Mr. Showman, I”—
Whatever he was going to say was cut short by a wild shout from Frank.
“Good lord!” he yelled, “Look there!”