The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 1 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

18 A PERUVIAN PARADISE, When the noise ceased and the-débris.stopped falling, the three advent- — urers gazed at one another with pallid faces. Not only had they narrowly escaped an awful death, but they were now stranded upon the margin of the river. ‘The path to the summit of the bluff was obliterated ! ‘Trapped, by Jove !’’ exclaimed Ford. | But Keeth ran back to the heap of earth and rock and rescued the rope which had already been of such service to them. ‘“We won’t say that till we try up stream,’’ he said, returning to his comrades. ‘‘ Come along.’’ ‘“ What do you think, Fitch?’’ demanded Ford. Fitch may have been pessimistic as regarded small things ; but now that a real catastrophe faced them, he developed a genuine English bulldog grit. ‘We hain’t dead yet,’’ he declared, shaking his head. ‘‘A/2’m not goin’ to spend the rest of my days down ’ere—not if Hi know myself!” But after tramping by the margin of thestream for several miles, and com- ing to no point where the bluff was scalable, even he began to lose hope. ‘‘We’re getting deeper and deeper into the country of those Indians of whom Jose told us,’’ said Keeth. ‘‘If we should fall in with them it might go harder with us than it did with him. I don’t fancy remain- ing three years a captive, as he did.”’ ‘What will you do?’’ cried Ford, who was quite disheartened. ‘Stand here and wait for the first freshet to drown you? I’m going ahead if I walk a hundred miles along this confounded shore. ‘There must be some way to get to the summit of the bank.’’ But the way did not appear, and just eke daylight faded from the sky and the night shadows.settled upon the surface of the waters, their further progress was barred by a wide break in the shore. The river lapped the rocky wall; there was not even a narrow shelf to offer.a foothold. So they made themselves as comfortable as circumstances allowed and prepared to spend the night. CHAPTER V.—A RESCUE AND A MENACE. Forp and the trader slept like logs after the fatigues of the day; but Ronald Keeth was awake long before the first finger of light traced the out- line of the distant mountain peaks. ‘Their situation, shut into the gorge as they appeared to be, disturbed him. ‘To be lost in this barren wilderness was bad enough; but to be inclosed upon a narrow strip of land, scarcely ten yards wide at its broadest point, and in places so narrow that only a footpath separated the insurmountable cliff from the black river, was infinitely worse. He arose from his uncomfortable couch as soon as it was light enough in the gorge to see and examined the strip of water which had halted them the night before. ‘he bluff was a sheer precipice here, with not the faintest sign of a path. But his anxious eye caught sight of a weather beaten stub protruding from the gravelly shore beyond this belt of water. Once a tree had stood there ; but some furious freshet had broken it off three or four feet from the ground. (E@) Comilcbooks