“He wriggled and yelled and squirmed,” he said, “but I knew if I could keep his feet in the air long enough and didn’t tire out first I would win; when he stopped wriggling I got a chance to pull home a slip-knot I made and then I got the rope end over that place in the stone—it was sort of like a pulley and when I hauled on the rope his feet were up in the air and I tied the rope and ran to call you.”
“I wonder if he had the map?” Tom said.
Cliff walked to the man lying with his heels higher than his head, and jerked off a sandal.
Then they did slap Cliff’s back!
CHAPTER IX
AMBUSHED!
What to do next was a problem. They discussed it, breakfasting after Huayca had been returned to camp. They had the map again; but, at the same time, they had native carriers who had tried to slip away under cover of darkness; they had Huayca, morose, sullen, who must be guarded constantly or released to slip away and tell the Incas of their movements.
The mystery of the Spaniard was cleared up: when Bill had gone to his camp the night before he had seen from the way the man stumbled up that his ankle had been turned; they had stopped to let it rest or to improvise a rude hamaca—the native sedan-chair or palanquin, really more of a stretcher.
They discussed matters from every angle but could not find a plan that suited them all. If they went ahead their natives might disappear with the very things that were most necessary to their plans: if they kept a guard it would show that they were not the innocent travellers that they claimed they were. Of course Huayca knew the truth; but had he told the other natives? If they went on he might make their carriers turn against him. If they released him he would certainly go straight to the Incas, perhaps leaving the natives prepared to desert them or to lead them into some trap and there desert them.
Their discussion had reached no end when they saw four natives coming up the pass, carrying a roughly made litter. In it was Pizzara, the Spaniard.
“I twis’ the foot,” he said after he had been brought to their circle and his litter had been set down. “Thank you very much, I have eat the breakfast.”