n a happy, joyous smile.

We lifted her to the back of her mule, then mounted our own. Suddenly
a recollection shot through my brain with remarkable clearness, and I
turned to Le Mire:

"Desiree, do you know the first time I ever saw you? It was in an
electric brougham at the Gare du Nord. This is somewhat different, my
lady."

"And infinitely more interesting," she answered. "Are you ready? See
that stupid arriero! Ah! After all, he knew what he was about. Then,
messieurs--allons!"

The arriero, receiving my nod uttered a peculiar whistle through his
teeth. The mules pricked up their ears, then with one common movement
started forward.

"Adios! Adios, senora! Adios, senores!"

With the cry of our late host sounding in our ears we passed down the
narrow little street of Cerro de Pasco on our way to the snow-capped
peaks of the Andes.

Chapter V.

THE CAVE OF THE DEVIL.

You may remember that I made some remark concerning the difficulty of
the ascent of Pike's Peak. Well, that is mere child's play--a morning
constitutional compared to the paths we found ourselves compelled to
follow in the great Cordillera.

Nor was it permitted us to become gradually accustomed to the danger;
we had not been two hours out of Cerro de Pasco before we found
ourselves creeping along a ledge so narrow there was scarcely room for
the mules to place their hoofs together, over a precipice three
thousand feet in the air--straight. And, added to this was the
discomfort, amounting at times to positive pain, caused by the soroche.

Hardly ever did we find ground sufficiently broad for a breathing
space, save when our arriero led us, almost by magic it seemed, to a
camping place for the night. We would ascend the side of a narrow
valley; on one hand roared a torrent some hundreds of feet below; on
the other rose an uncompromising wall of rock. So narrow would be the
track that as I sat astride my mule my outside leg would be hanging
over the abyss.

But the grandeur, the novelty, and the variety of the scenery repaid
us; and Le Mire loved the danger for its own sake. Time and again she
swayed far out of her saddle until her body was literally suspended in
the air above some frightful chasm, while she turned her head to laugh
gaily at Harry and myself, who brought up the rear.

"But Desiree! If the girth should break!"

"Oh, but it won't."

"But if it should?"

"Tra-la-la! Come, catch me!"

And she woul