All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 59: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LAND OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE. In the Cholo mountam villages he was first to spur forward, shouting for the gader- nadore, and disorganizing with his cries of “Za! Za!” the attacks of the native dogs which rushed from the mud dwellings. In presenting Jones’s papers, it was im- pressed upon the local magistrates that the foreign semores were ingenieros, who perhaps would open new mines—infarmation invari- ably preductive of courteous treatment and offers of aid. Such was not stated in the papers; but ‘“ It is necessary to lie a little,’ the don explained. It was noticeable that he left the actual lying ta Tomas, who had positive talent m that direction. Soon after their departure from Huaraz, the travelers began to perceive the value of the mule as a means of locomotion. As- cending rapidly into the puna, the almost treeless upland, the trai crossed a succes- sion of plateaux, the roads between which lay through precipitous defiles in the rocks, where the going was much too rough for the feet of horses. Occasionally they met Cholos with cara- vans of pack-llamas, the small humpless camels of the southern continent. Some- times they passed a Cholo shepherd or shepherdess tending their flocks among the hills. If it was a man, perhaps he would be playing weird melodies on flute or pan- pipes; if a woman, she invariably was spin- ning, twisting her yarn from a ball of crude wool with a dangling wooden spindle which She manipulated with adept twirls of her wrist. Every hill was surmounted with its wooden cross, and bore the name of some saint. On one of the plateaux the way crossed a sandy desert a number of miles in extent, where the road was marked plainly by in- numerable bottles and tins of every size and shape, labeled in almost every known language, and which had contained every- thing in the way of drinkables from cham- pagne and brandy to mimeral waters and beer. * Mid-way across this expanse the Martian, who had been riding ahead with Don Cas. tro, raised himself in his stirrups, stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared “An army of sea-turtles!” he cried. *‘ Where could they have come from?” 49 De Ulloa laughed. ‘“ They are médanes, Senor Kelly,” he said, regarding the myriad creeping brown forms which had astounded the Martian. As they came nearer, the don rode his mule into the van of the slowly moving column. Each time that the hoofs of the animal touched one of Kelty’s “ tur- _tles,” it vanished, and a spurt of dust drifted away. That was all they were—heaps of the finest wind-blown sand, creeping slowly along under the impulse of the breeze, and curieusly preserving always the same geo- metrical form, that of a gigantic tortoise. From Huaraz the trail which the travelers followed rises to an elevation of more than fifteen thousand feet at the summit of the pass of Yanashallas, by which is crossed the main Andean range. On the farther side of the pass and some distance down the valley of Chavin on the Rio Poccha is the native village of Huantar. From Huataz to Huantar is a distance of fourteen leagues. Under the best of conditions, a hardy traveler with an exceptionally good beast can make the trip in one day of hard riding; and on the way ‘experience all variations of chmate, from the semitropical atmos. phere of Huaraz to the polar blizzards, car- rying with them stinging clouds of sleet and snow, which howl through the pass of Yana. shallas. The progress of Jones and his outfit was necessarily. much slower. As they ascended into the region of perpetual.snows, the memt- bers of the party began to realize the truth of their guide’s warnings, and to appreciate the preparations which he had made to in- sure their comfort. Heavy ponchos were nene too heavy, and knitted Cholo hoeds and mittens were grateful in the face of the icy blasts which blew upon them from the white-clad summits at either hand. Lima saddles proved their vaunted superiority. Here, too, they encountered the soroche, the dreaded mountain-sickness, due to the altitude, which attacks the head, heart, and lungs. Strangely enough, Jim Arnold, ex- ceptionally powerful and active, was the only one actually prostrated by this malady, which strikes with the suddenness of a mule’s foot. Near the lower entrance to the pass Jim saw near the side of the trail COMICOooe C S C©