El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-07
CHAPTER XXI.
The Mystery Solved.

The Mystery Solved.
All day the air had been unusually
sultry and breathlessly hot, even for
the tropics at that season; but when
the sun sank westward, when the air
became cooler, and the shadows of the
| island, with its wooded bluff and tow
! ering blue mountain, across the slope
of which the light gossamer clouds
| Law floating. halfway up, were thrown
far eastward over that lonely sea
| which no keel seemed ever to furrow
| we prepared for further exploration
or as Hugh Chute said Ito overhaul
that ere cliff from truck to keelson."
Chute and Carlson We're dispatched
to it's base by the way of the river
bank, and to where the cascade pour
ed over the rocks, waking the solemn
echoes of the otherwise silent ravine
Their instructions were to station
| themselves near the rocks which bore
the Spanish legend-to keep a sharp
lookout on the face of the cliff and all
the way up to the grove of banana
trees that grew on its summit.
Billy the cabin boy was left in charge
ceeded to climb.
1t was, or is twelve months can
make no change) a hundred and fifty
feet in height, as 1 have stated, ris-
ing sharply up from the side of the
great mountain, and is covered by a
jungle of wild shrubs that must have
been growing there since the days OF
the deluge
The creepers with gummy branches,
the sharp serrated grass, the yellow
gourd vines, the wild tendrils and
plants of which we knew neither the
names nor the nature. were there in
terwoven as closely as a herring net,
to the depth of seven or eight feet
from their roots.
Amid this jungle the hum of the
myriads of great insects which we
reused and dislodged was deafening;
while the black clouds Of gad-flies and
cockroaches were very bewiidering,
and, to say the least. annoying.
Hislop, who had not yet recovered
his strength, was among the first to
give in, and declare, when half way up,
that "he could climb no further.'
Two or three took advantage of this
admission to remain with him for a
time; but 1, refreshed by ripe ba-
mana which had fallen from the trees
at the top, and which l found just
at hand. pushed on, and being lighter
than any of my companions, got ahead
of them all.
After half an hours severe toll, dur
ing which my hands and knees were
lacerated and torn by sharp blades of
gigantic grass, and by the gummy
creepers to which ones very flesh adj
hered at times, l reached at last the
banana trees, the foliage of which
waved like a gigantic plume on the
summit Of this isolated rock
The banana rises with stem which
is about six or seven inches in diam
eter at the root, and from thence
tapers upward to the height of eighteen
or twenty feet, to where the leaves
spring like a bright green tuft, broad,
wavy, feathery, and dropping, as those
of the palm do.
l uttered a shout-an 40 poean!'-
to my companions, announcing that |
had gained the summit before them,
and armed with my only weapon, the
lakewood spear, pushed my way for
ward between the smooth stems of the
bananas, till 1 reached the abrupt
brow of the cliff, from the verge of
which l saw, far down below the
bright blue stream that rose on the
slopes of the great mountain, running
through the heart of the isle and gilt
tering in the setting sun among groves
and ravines, to where it poured in
foam upon the white sandy beach, and
mingled with the mighty Southern sea.
l saw also the figures of Chute and
Carlton, as they stood near the rock
which bore the inscription, but they
could neither distinguish me nor hear
my shout, which gave fresh ardor to
those whom 1 had left halfway down
and who now resumed their ascent.
1 looked keenly and cautiously about
me on every side, but saw only the
slender and countless stems of the tall
bananas, whose broad leaves, as they
spread under or over each other inter-
rupted the rays of the sun, and formed