“I can see none.”
“Still there must be some open channel. Didn’t we come through here before? Give me the light; perhaps the turn is back here.”
They focussed the bright rays in all directions, but to no avail.
“Ted!” Stanley cried in sudden consternation. “This was the opening, right here, but it is not here now. It has been blocked up.”
“Impossible,” Ted returned in dismay. “Do you mean that we cannot get back into the valley?”
“Come ahead and see for yourself.”
Ted pushed his way to the front of Stanley’s raft. The latter’s words were all too true, for the opening into the valley was filled with earth and stones of large size.
“They learned of our escape from Timichi,” Ted said bitterly, “and knew we would come back. Well, I am not ready to admit that all my visions and hopes are dead; but just now there is nothing but darkness ahead.”
“How about dynamite?” Stanley asked suddenly. “We could blast away the rocks in the entrance and get in after all.”
“But what could we do against the Inca’s hordes once we were inside?”