Year: 1875

hands than our own. At last got hold
of two Spaniards-two sturdy fellows
they were, and honest enough as Span
iards go-and then Portigee and two
niggers. We weren't long in buying our
stores and working tackle, ana by the
time Seth came back with his guide, all
was ready and away we went


Seth was much too knowing bird to
let on what his real game was as long MS
we were within hail of the town, for If
YOU say gold" there only in whisper
those blessed Gambusinos (gold-tinders)
will hear it hundred miles off. So all
that we told our gang was that We were
going prospecting among the lower
ranges. MS lots of fellows did every day ;
but when we were past the old Indian S
hut and well up among the hills, so that
our chaps couldn't easily turn back if
they wanted, he up and told them the
whole story. They We're rather taken
aback, as well they might be, for Lake
Titicaca's good many days journey to
the nor east, among some very awkward
mountains and a good thirteen thousand
feet above the sea, if it's an inch. How
ever, Spaniard Cor any other man, for
that matter,) will go pretty nearly any
where if he once gets on the scent of
gold to our fellows they spoke up
stoutly enough, and said they were ready
to go up to the lake, ana down to the
bottom of it into the bargain, after such
a haul as that and off we set again.


I've seen n good many wonders in my
time, knocking about the world as I've
done but anything like that climb up
the Andes / never saw yet. Rocks that
seemed to go up into the very sky,
straight as a plumb-line beds of moss
three or four deep, and soft as a velvet
cushion !; trees two hundred feet high,
all one blaze of flowers from top to bot
tom leaves big enough to wrap you up
like blanket tree-ferns big as a table
cloth, all glittering like the finest silver
lace humming- birds and monkeys and
parrots, and butterflies as broad rs the
palm of your hand waterfalls sheer
down over great black precipices thou
sand feet high and far away behind the
everlasting mountains, piled one above
another till they seemed to go right up
to heaven. Among all these enormous
things we eight men, big and strong as
We were, seemed of no more account than
a lot of ants crawling on blade of grass;
and think | never felt SO small in my
| life as / did then.


However, hadn't much leisure to
think about it at the time, for you can't
expect fellow to have much of an eye
for scenery when he's hacking his way
through great cobweb of branches too
! thick for the light to get through, with
his boots full of ants and his mouth full
of gnats, and the damp vapor- bath heat
of the woods melting him away bit by
bit, fifty prickles going into him Mt
once, thorn-bush scalping him from
above, and creeper tripping him up
down below.


And so we hammered along, till at last
we worked up to the plateau and saw the
great lake spreading away before us as
far as ever we could see. We weren't
long of making ont the three-cornercd
crag, nor the shadow neither, for il was
just sunrise when we got there, as If o
purpose for us and once we'd made it
out we hardly waited to take breath be-
| fore we were mt it tooth and nail.


Tho first day was regular blank one
! till just toward sundown, and then the
Portigee screeched out suddenly that
he'd got something heavy. 1 helped
him to haul up the pan, and there, sure
enough, was a bar of gold over foot
long, and pretty nigh rs thick as my two
fingers here. At that we all shouted at
once, and went at it harder than ever ::
and / really think our chaps would have
worked all night, but Seth stopped 'em.
He told 'em that the gold wouldn't run
away, and that if they put on too much
steam Mt first they'd Just knock them
selves up before they were half through,
and that they'd better just light a fire and
| get dried, and have some supper, and fix
up some kind of shelter against the dew,
and then start fair next morning. And
SO they did.


The next day and the next and the
next after that we kept bringing it up in
handfuls-gold circlets and chains and
necklaces and ingots without end. But
on the fifth day l found the provisions
getting so low that | was rather scared,
for up here there was no game of any
sort, there being no vegetation at that
height for the game to live on. So we
held council of war. Our chaps had
got the gold-fever so into their blood by
this time that L verify believe they'd have
kept digging on till they died of hunger;
but Seth and /, who were little cooler,
talked them over at last. We told 'em
that we'd got enough already to make
us all as rich AZ Jows that we must all
starve if we didn't replenish our stock
somehow f; that ten to one the "find" was
played out (and, indeed, none of us had
taken grain all that morning); and that,
in any case, the lake was always there,
and they could come back and try again
whenever they liked. SO, bit by bit, we
worked 'em round, and all started to go
back together.


We'd hard work of it the first part of
the way, for our loads were pretty heavy,
and stumbling in and out of the great
rocks was no joke, let alone that the five
days work had taken it out of us more
than we expected. One of the Spaniards
got bad fall, and not one of us but had
his bruise to show. But at last we got
over the barren bit and found ourselves
fairly down among the wood again |; and
then / began to be jolly, thinking this
was the end of it. But it wasn't-it was
only the beginning.


CHAPTER II.


One afternoon, when we'd got well
u AIo