to gratify them immensely.

The mozo, feeling his secondary position, had enervated himself
slightly--the superior was magisterially tipsy. He wore a remarkable hat
entirely without a brim, and patched all over the top with a lid of
leather. His face, marked up to the eyes with the blue stubble of that
beard which filled him with pride as a sign of European extraction, was
swollen and hideous with drunkenness. He carried, besides the fearful
blunder-buss of the night before, a belt full of pistols and hatchets. A
short infantry-sword was banging away at his calves, and two long
ox-horns rattled at his waist. The interpreters had been partaking of a
little complimentary breakfast with the muleteers in whose care the
animals had gone off to Marcapata.

[Illustration: "CHAUPICHACA WAS MARKED WITH A SQUARE TERMINAL PILLAR."]

A concentration of energy on the part of the chiefs of the expedition
was required to set in movement this unpromising assemblage. The
examinador undertook the peons: he rapped them smartly and repeatedly
about the head and shoulders, until they staggered to their feet and
declared that they were a match for whole hordes of Indians: this
courage, borrowed from the flask, gave strong assurance that at the
first alarm from genuine Chunchos they would take to their heels. Mr.
Marcoy, feeling unable to do justice to the case of the nephew, turned
him over to Perez, whose undisguised dislike made the work of correction
at once grateful and thorough. Marcoy himself confronted the stolid and
sullen Pepe Garcia, insisting upon the example he owed to the Indian
porters and the responsibility of his Caucasian blood. The half-breed
listened for a minute, his eyes fixed upon the ground: he then shook
himself, looked an instant at his employer, and planted himself firmly
on his legs. Then, determined to prove by a supreme effort that he was
clear-headed and master of his motions, he suddenly drew his sword,
hustled the Indians in a line by two and two, pointed out to Aragon his
position as rear-guard, and cried with a voice of thunder, "_Adelante_!"
The porters and peons staggered forward, knocking against each other's
elbows and tottering on their stout legs. The three white men,
burdenless, but regretting their horses, walked as they pleased, keeping
the train in sight. And John the nephew of Aragon's guitar, dangling at
his back, brought up the rear, with its suggestions of harmony and the
amenities of life.