Have they
deserted it? Why are they on this side now?" asked Courtenay.
"I believe they brought me here at first because they wished to keep me
on account of my magic, and they knew I would endeavor to escape to a
passing ship. We came over the mountains by a terrible road. I have
been told that landslips and avalanches have closed the pass ever
since. I do not know whether that is true or not, but if I had tried
to get away in that direction they would have caught me in a few hours.
No man can elude them. They can see twice as far as any European, and
they are wonderful trackers."
Suddenly his voice failed him. Though the words came fluently, his
long-disused vocal chords were unequal to the strain of measured
speech. He asked hoarsely for some hot water. When Courtenay next
came across him in the saloon he was asleep, and changed so greatly by
the removal of pigments from his face that it was difficult to regard
him as the same being.
His story was unquestionably true. Tollemache, who had fought an
offshoot tribe of these same Indians, Christobal, who vouched for the
Argentine accent, and Elsie, who seemed to have read such rare books of
travel as dealt with that little known part of the world, bore out the
reasonableness of his statements.
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