The Voodoo Gold Trail

by Walter Walden

Five minutes after Duran had passed out of view, I hobbled on my crutch out a little into the open again, once more hoping to attract any one of my crowd who might be stationed up there on the cliff. And sure enough, I saw the head and hand of someone—it must be either Robert or Ray.

I forthwith began with my signalling. The facility shown in the responses, convinced me that it was Ray I conversed with. I told him of the rope ladder and the manner of its disposition, as near as I had been able to judge. Then I hinted the importance of some of our party following Duran, if he should go off with a burden of treasure this coming night. I ended the exchange with a caution to get back in hiding against the return of Duran, and discovery.

I crawled back into the cover of the wood again. When Duran finally came and had got down to the ledge, and with his hands on the halliard was hauling the ladder up to its nest in the firs, I saw the figure of Ray up there, doubtless watching the working of the rope mechanism. Duran went down that piece of sloping ledge, and marched off up the vale, the way he had come when I first set eyes on him that morning.

It was well past noon when he made his appearance again, and passed on down the vale with another burden on his back. He made a second trip with a second load before climbing up the cliff on his ladder. And I had another few words in code with Ray, while Duran was gone to the grotto.

For that day, it was the last journeying of Duran over that route, for when at last he went up the vale again, no more was seen of him in daylight. I hobbled along after, in time, keeping within the edge of the wood which flanked the stream. I had got myself some two hundred yards on the way, when the ground rose to accommodate a ridge of rock that went all the way across the vale, from the sheer and beetling crags of one side to those of the other. The stream broke, tumbling partly through, and partly over this ridge; and the country above was a bit more elevated than that part of this out of the world region with which I had already made some little acquaintance. The growth consisted of palms, live oaks, tree ferns, and other plants, tropical, for which I had no name.

I found an elevated situation on the ridge that gave me a fair view of this sunken region into which I had tumbled so unceremoniously the night before. Less than two miles above, showed the wall of cliff that closed the vale at its upper end. The forest growth hid from view any habitation or any other works of man that might be between.

Though a path marked the way Duran had gone, I durst not tread that road lest I unexpectedly meet up with him somewhere on its windings through the growth. The sun had been some time past the zenith when I took some more food, and then made a hurried trip to the stream for a drink; this, before taking up a position within some screening brush, whence I could command that path. I looked for Duran at the earliest, some time after dark. But I had learned to be prepared to expect the unexpected, as Ray would have put it. And it was well I did so.

I was almost dead for sleep, and it was a wonder I did not drop off completely. But I contrived to doze in cat-naps, with one eye open, as it were, till a short time before dusk, when I was startled erect by a footfall on a rocky bit of the path; and there came Duran, bearing a short gun slung on his back. And directly he had passed me, I picked up my crutch and started after. I watched him climb by his ladder, and saw him haul it up after him, and he brought up the halliard as well. So that now I knew I was indeed a prisoner in that hidden dell, till someone should let down that ladder again.

The way was now clear, I felt, for a free investigation of that region at the end of the path. And I must hurry if I was to go far before night should throw its black mantle over the scene; time enough to summon the others later.

So back I went, boldly, over the ridge. I moved as rapidly as my impromptu crutch and one good leg would carry me, till I passed round a turn of the path, and all but collided with a queer figure of a man. He plumped down on his knees and began to beg mercy.