Finding Plum Plucky waiting anxiously for him at the expected place of meeting, Jack led the way toward civilization, having come to the conclusion to close the trade on one of the nitrate beds he had seen and begin operations as soon as possible.
He said nothing to his companion of his experience in the valley of mystery, partly because the stirring scenes immediately following caused him to put it in the background of his memory for a while.
He was the more anxious to get his first cargo of nitrate off as the war cloud was deepening fast, and not only was Peru and Chili at a state of bitter antagonism, but Bolivia was threatening to mix in the trouble. A three-cornered war, with Southern Peru for its battleground, was anything but what he desired to see.
The next day he bought his first nitrate bed, paying for it forty pistoles, which was considerably more than he had expected, but it was large, and if his plans only worked he believed there was a small fortune in it.
He then hired oxen enough to make two six-ox teams, with suitable wagons to draw the nitrate on, and he engaged the services of half a dozen Peruvians to help in the work of getting out the first loads.
As the bed lay remote from the few beaten paths of the thinly populated country, it would involve considerable hard work and time to get passable roads cut through, so as to be able to draw loads of any size.
“By gosh!” drawled Plum Plucky, as they set out on their work, “I’m going to stand by yeou; but yeou may hang my hat on a scare-crow if I don’t think yeou’ll blow yerself dry.”
“By that I suppose you mean that I shall lose all I am putting into my venture,” said Jack, good-naturedly.
“That’s just what I mean. I’ll bet yeou have got about every dollar yeou have into it now.”
“I have figured up that I shall have about twenty pounds left when I have paid off my help.”