Faintly, very faintly, borne to their ears, came the sound of church bells ringing furiously.
“They must be going to hold services in our honor,” hazarded Joe.
“More likely they are going to pray that we don’t harm them,” responded Nat. “According to the professor, the people of this country are a very ignorant lot.”
By afternoon the Discoverer was flying above rugged country. The foothills of the great Andean range had been reached, and they were in Bolivia. It gave the boys a thrill to think that they were actually at last in the hoped-for vicinity of the lost city of the mysterious old Incas.
As the sun grew lower, the great altitude to which they had attained struck them with a sharp sense of chilliness.
“This part of the world ought to be called Chile,” observed Joe, as he and the professor and Nat stood on the forward deck just below the pilot-house.
“If you will come into the cabin and see what I have in that big chest, we can possibly get over that difficulty,” said the professor, with a smile.
The lads accompanied him within and found that the chest referred to contained a variety of warm clothing.
“I knew that the late afternoons and nights on the Andean heights were bitterly cold,” said the professor, as the boys selected some garments, not forgetting a coat-sweater for Ding-dong. “I therefore took the precaution to be prepared to meet them.”