Through The Andes

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Saunderson, Red and their expedition set off through the Andes on an adventure to find a lost city! Along the way they face many perils.

Excerpt

When we had passed through Cajamarca we had heard rumors of bandits in the mountains. Then, at Porvenir, the Commandante had told us that ever since the last revolution, against the Dictator, Serrano, bands of outlaws had been robbing travelers in the hills. But Don Jaime, at the Hacienda de Dos Rios, had minimized the danger. The Commandante's outlaws, he declared, showing his strong even teeth in a smile and with one lean hand airily waving all bandits aside, were merely the remnants of the insurrectos who dared not show themselves at the towns and could not return to their own homes, for fear of arrest and a firing squad. "So what would you, señores?" he asked. "man must live—no? They may steal—yes. They may help themselves to sheep, to the cattle, to the corn and the chickens. But, caramba, do not the soldiers of the gobiemo do the same? Yet would the Señor Commandante call them bandits? Bandits! Pouff! I myself ride over the passes and through the hills in the night as well as in the day, and do I see these so-dreadful brigands, these outlaws? Madre de Dios—no! Never, not at all, not one bandit do I meet. Insurrectos, si—ragged, half-starved rascals who, had their cause won, would of a truth be holding fat jobs like that of El Commandante. Cholos* mostly, who were led to take arms by those with more brains and less courage than themselves, who deserted them when they saw defeat. But bandits! Pouff, I say!"

And as El Commandante was a timid soul and wont to exaggerate all things— his own importance included—and as Don Jaime was in a position to know, we decided that brigands were the least of the dangers we faced on our expedition into the wild Achcacuna district. Besides, none of us were the sort to be much troubled by thought of banditti, even if we had taken the Commandante's words at their face value. We three had been in tight places before. All of us were old hands at the game. We could all shoot and shoot straight, and we had all met some pretty hard cases of Homo sapiens in our days. "Red," or more properly, Jimmy Neil, had once served on the Texas Rangers, and bad men had no terror for him. Saunderson had traveled through brigand-infested portions of the Orient. And I had lived for so long among primitive savage tribes and traditionally hostile Indians that I had developed a sort of contempt for supposedly dangerous human beings, and discounted all tales of bad-men, red or white. And we didn't have much that would tempt genuine, dyed-in-the-wool bandits, even if they were in the hills. We weren't carrying money like the paymasters at the mines. On the contrary we were practically penniless as far as specie was concerned, for we were headed for a district where currency had no intrinsic value and we didn't have twenty-five dollars in real money among us. I think Red's Masonic ring was the only piece of jewelry in the outfit, and our watches were either Ingersolls or cheap nickel-plated timepieces. Of course there were our guns and ammunition, our food supplies and our camp outfit. But aside from the firearms and the food there wasn't anything that a bandit could sell or use, and the provisions weren't enough to tempt any brigand to risk his life. Oh, yes, there were the trade goods. But what outlaw would want glass beads, tin whistles, mouth organs, cotton ribbon, files, hoop iron, cheap butcher knives and scented soap—especially the soap?

And everyone in the country knew all about our expedition, who we were, what we had and where we were going, so there wasn't much fear of being held up by mistake. Everyone knew we were on a quasi-scientific exploring trip.