“Or they have turned into some side pass, thinking that can get around us in some way,” Bill added, “But they won’t. I guess we have lost them for good.”
They all felt rather glad of it. There had been some fun in the game of hare and hounds at first, but after a few days the continual watching became wearisome and perhaps worrisome. Their natives noticed it, for one thing, and they did not want the Peruvians to think their story of an engineering and educational trip was a ruse. They all breathed more freely that night as they made camp.
But Cliff kept wondering why the pursuit had stopped.
That night—and it was cold for they were very high up in the levels just a little below snow level—he lay rolled in his blanket, in the tent the chums shared, thinking about it.
“Cliff,” Tom’s voice whispered through the dark, “Are you asleep?”
“No,” Cliff answered under his breath. But he need not have been so cautious. Nicky was not asleep, either: and he declared the fact promptly.
“I’m awake too. Is it to be a session of the Inner Circle?”
“Maybe,” Tom replied, “I was going to ask Cliff if he noticed that Indian that Bill calls Whackey—the one whose name is Huayca?”
“Notice him? Notice what about him?” Nicky demanded.
“He kept dropping back from one carrier to the next one, right along the line, today.”