Chapter XX: An Adventure

Juarez had intended on going a short distance, but the bright sunlight, the charm of the hills, the luxuriant foliage, the unusual and brilliant wild flowers, all these attractions, coupled with his own exuberant spirits lured him on.

He reached by a roundabout route the top of the mountainous elevation which, in company with his comrade, he had explored the day before.

Willing to rest now in the shade of some bushes he lolled upon the ground, and lulled by the whispering melodies of the trees was about to drop off to sleep.

Suddenly his attention was attracted to some motion in the underbrush at a point a third of the way down the mountain. He watched intently and knew that some person, two, probably, were ascending the slope. In his efforts to secure a better viewpoint, he stretched far forward, too far, it turned out, and catching wildly and ineffectively for a support, greatly to his astonishment, he slipped and fell to a ledge below. The distance was not great, but his head in the descent came in contact with a projecting rock, and although he landed upon a growth of thickly foliaged bushes, he was rendered unconscious by the blow he had sustained.

He was aroused some time later by voices near at hand, one of which he immediately recognized. It was the steward of the Storm King who was speaking.

"I sent you the chart in the keg, but I have learned that the young fellow Jim had a copy of it, which he carries always in a water proof paper in his pocket."

The listener did not move. He was as securely hidden as if by a prearranged plan. He had not been observed, and while he did not see the speakers he knew that those to whom the steward was talking must be of the rival ship's crew, probably it was the leader himself who was present here, and possibly the mate, for he could tell from the voices there were two of the desperadoes.

"Why have you not secured the copy and destroyed it?" came the inquiry.

"I cannot do it. The fellow suspected me. Besides he is a terror, and I dare not."

"Dare not! What would your life be worth if I told the authorities at home what I know about you?"

There was something said by the other man which Juarez could not hear, but he caught the word captain.

"Dash it, man!" said the one addressed. "I believe you are right!"

Then it was the steward who spoke. "I only know," he said, "that I got the chart out of the secret hiding place into which it was put. I cannot say if it is the original, the right chart."

"Then it is the papers which that fellow you speak of has now that we must have. There is something wrong about the chart we have been working with. We were evidently on the wrong island entirely. Things did not figure out right."

"It's about the original chart that I came to tell you to-day," responded the steward. "Jim is at this moment alone in the little shack on Crescent Bay."

"Well," said the captain, "why don't you get it?"

"It cannot be gotten unless you kill the fellow."

"Well," drawled the captain, "and why not? You have done--."

"Don't! Don't! I had been drinking then," was the plaintive protest.

"So you want to turn the pleasant task over to me, eh? Well, I guess between the two of us we can manage one young cub, eh mate Marion?"

There was no reply, but doubtless the mate acquiesced by a motion of the head.

"I warn you, Captain Beauchamp, that although he is young, Jim Darlington is a difficult one to handle," cautioned the steward.

"Jim Darlington!" gasped the captain. It was his turn to be surprised. "I thought he was dead."

"On the contrary, he is very much alive, as are the other Frontier Boys."

"Well, I'll be blessed," said the captain, "the old innkeeper and the Senor's man told me all the party had gone up with the old hulk."

Amid frequent expressions of astonishment the steward told the story, as he had learned it, of the affair at San Matteo Bay, ending with the rescue of the entire party.

"Poor Reynolds," laughed Captain Beauchamp. "He must have had a jolly meeting with the Senor. I wrote to Reynolds that everybody had been blown sky high, and that the slate was clean."

The mate, whose voice was a low grumble, made some remark which Juarez could not hear.

"Yes, about that Jim," the captain was saying. "What we want to do is to surprise him, take him unawares."

Again the murmur of the mate's voice, but he spoke too low for his words to be heard.

"It's near dusk," resumed the captain. "In half an hour it will be pitch dark. We'll jog along towards the bay and take some observations."

The listener heard no more.

Some bird flitted into a branch close beside Juarez and uttered a gentle chirp. He knew that he was alone. He knew, too, that a serious task was cut out for him. To descend the mountain by the route he had come and reach the shack or shelter at the landing place would necessitate his passing the villainous pair he had overheard. This they would likely prevent. The feat was well nigh impossible.

It seemed right good fortune that he had overheard their plans, but how could he circumvent them? He had it. A sudden inspiration burned into his soul. He must descend by the precipitous route on the side toward the sea down which he and Jo had traveled the day before. They had made the descent for pleasure, then, helping each other, and in broad daylight. Could he do the trick alone and in the dark?

He tried to scramble to his feet. The effort sent a paralyzing pain through his head and neck, and he relaxed again with a stifled moan. After a moment he tried again, more slowly now, and in spite of the terrible pain, soon staggered to his feet.

He looked about. Directly above him was an overhanging boulder. It was upon its jagged edge he had struck when falling. Below was the stone turreted, bushy mountain side. Supporting himself with his hands he crept around the base of the boulder and soon got a broader outlook. His gun, as too great a handicap to carry on his trip, he discarded, carefully secreting it.

A considerable interval must have elapsed since he received that paralyzing abrasure from the rock against which he had struck, for the sun was gone and a melancholy gloom was settling over the wild landscape. Assuredly he must be moving. Those unscrupulous cutthroats would stop at nothing. And was not Jim, his dearest and most admired friend, in danger? It was an agonizing thought that gripped his mind.

He sprang forward with a spasmodic intake of the breath, and sped like a wild faun along the rugged hillside. He did not know that his face and head were caked with clotted blood. He even forgot the throbbing pain. He would climb down the cliffs by the difficult and undetermined route he had traversed the day before.

Bursting through thickets and stumbling across darkening ravines he reached the point from which the perilous descent of the cliff side could be undertaken. Gloomy crags towered above him, and below, the almost unknown forbidding way, crowded with tragic uncertainties.

But not a moment could be spared. Without hesitation he plunged recklessly into the abyss and in a moment was hugging the cold rocks, clutching at supporting twigs and undergrowths, sliding, slipping, almost falling down a frightful precipice.

Once he lost his hold entirely and felt himself whirling through the darkness, but he writhed himself upright in his fall and brought up with a smash and a crash in the dense foliage of a quertel nut tree. He did not feel the torn skin on face and hands, nor know that a fresh torrent of blood burst from the abrasure on his head. He groped blindly for the splintered rocks at the trees' base, felt their resisting force and lunged forward once more.

Soon he found himself on a sloping bench or shelf whose surface was on a level with the tops of some trees below, and he remembered the spot. Here Jo and he had enjoyed a grand view of the ocean, enveloped in mystery and obscurity. Owing to the absence of shrubbery it was lighter here, and out of pure necessity he was compelled to halt for breath. He leaned against the wall of rock for a moment before commencing the next stage of the journey.

He remembered that his former passage had led him for a hundred feet or more before bringing him to another drop. Straining his eyes along the stretch of shelf he suddenly beheld an object emerge from the darkness and grow larger as it approached. Then appeared another and another till he had counted six, all in regular Indian file and moving in absolute silence.

There was a moment of dreadful uncertainty. Clearly these were the natives of this or some nearby island, and the first that he or any of his party had seen. The only weapon that Juarez possessed was a hunting knife. He pressed himself against the rock and held his hand to throttle the beating of his heart. They approached. Now he heard the soft shuffle of their feet. Closer, and the first was nearly abreast of him. Closer still, and the man glided by not three yards away, as--happy relief--did his followers.

They passed, and still he moved not. The subdued twinkling of the falling gravel, the swish and rattle of the boughs and he was alone. Then his breath came back with a spurt, and he realized that he had been near to suffocation. It was not that he feared for himself. But that awful responsibility, the warning of Jim. He must do nothing, attempt nothing, that would involve the possibility of delay.

But there was no time for musing. The half of his dangerous descent was before him. He hurried forward again, almost running along the shelving bench although he knew that a perpendicular drop of many yards was but a few inches from his nimble feet. He knew where to make the next plunge downward for the shelf pinched out, and there was no other way of advancing.

Down he went among insecure boulders, fragments of the upper cliff thrown off by some convulsion of nature, and again he had a dangerous fall. He struck upon his side and slid for a rod not unlike a log, bringing up with a serious injury against a boulder. Below were dwarf compametos trees, and beneath them he squirmed, the meager light shut out entirely by their dense foliage. Soon a bed of prickly leaves and ferns told him that he was over the worst of the road.

Still there was much treacherous footing ahead and he stumbled and tripped more than once. But now he was nearing the shack, and he must exercise all his caution taught by long experience with the Indians. Noiseless and as stealthy as a cat he squirmed through the tangled underbrush till he reached the sandy margin of Crescent Bay. Still keeping within the shadow of the forest growth, he advanced rapidly, fearing every moment that some overt act would advise him that he had not been swift enough.

Now he was within call of the shelter, and he gave a peculiar signal, a note of warning for Jim if he were awake. There was no response. None when the call was again repeated louder. Horrible thought! Was he too late?