n, dispatched six of them in as many
different directions to seek for traces of the missing party, offering a
substantial reward to the one who should bring him such information as
should lead to the recovery of the missing white man; and then, taking a
couple of sure-footed mules, set off in company with an Indian tracker
to scour the entire neighbourhood, in the hope of obtaining some clue to
the whereabouts of the missing party from some of the people by whom
that particular part of the country was sparsely inhabited. And in
order to avoid the loss of time which would be entailed by returning to
camp at night, he took with him three days' provisions for himself and
his guide, intending to carry out as exhaustive a search as possible in
that space of time.

Thus far the search had been prosecuted entirely in a forward direction;
but at the last moment, before setting out upon his three days' quest,
it suddenly occurred to Escombe that the missing ones might possibly
have doubled back and be making their way toward the sea coast, so in
order to test the value of this theory he determined to return a few
miles along the line of the survey and see whether he could discover any
traces of them in that direction.

At this time the surveyors were in the heart of an exceptionally
difficult tract of country, where the obstacles to rapid work were such
that, since Harry's return to duty after his adventures in the
_quebrada_, they had not advanced very much more than twenty miles from
that spot; thus it was still early in the afternoon of the first day
when he found himself gazing down into the abyss, wherein he had so
narrowly escaped a terrible death. By a natural association of ideas he
no sooner beheld the scene so indelibly engraven upon his memory than
his thoughts reverted to Cachama, his kind-hearted old Indian nurse, and
her son Yupanqui, and he vaguely wondered whether perhaps either of
these might be able to afford him any information or suggestion that
would assist him in his quest. The more he thought of it the more did
the idea grow upon his mind, and at length he came to the decision that
he might as well prosecute his search in the direction of their cave as
in any other, and he forthwith communicated his decision to his guide,
who, somewhat to Escombe's surprise, at once admitted that he was well
acquainted with Cachama and her son, and offered to conduct the young
Englishman to the cave in which the two re