e human, mortal mind names all its own
material concepts.

The days wore on with dull regularity. From the rippling Tiguicito,
which they reached choking with thirst and utterly exhausted, they
dropped down again to the Boque, where they established camps and
began to prospect the Molino company's "near-mines," as Harris called
them after the first few unsuccessful attempts to get "colors" out of
the barren soil. At certain points, where there seemed a more likely
prospect, they remained for days, until the men, under Rosendo's
guidance, could sink pits to the underlying bedrock. Such work was
done with the crudest of tools--an iron bar, wooden scrapers in lieu
of shovels, and wooden _bateas_ in which the men handed the loosened
dirt up from one stage to another and out to the surface. It was slow,
torturing work. The men grew restive. The food ran low, and they
complained.

Then Harris one evening stumbled upon a tapir, just as the great
animal had forded the river and was shambling into the bush
opposite. He emptied his rifle magazine into the beast. It fell
with a broken hip, and the men finished it with their _machetes_.
Its hide was nearly a half inch in thickness, and covered with
_garrapatas_--fierce, burrowing vermin, with hooked claws, which
came upon the travelers and caused them intense annoyance throughout
the remainder of the journey.

Then Reed shot a deer, a delicate, big-eyed creature that had never
seen a human being and was too surprised to flee. Later, Fidel Avila
felled another with a large stone. And, finally, monkeys became so
plentiful that the men all but refused to eat them any longer.

Two weeks were spent around the mouth of the Tiguicito and the Boque
canon. Then Reed gave the order to advance. The little party
shouldered their packs and began the ascent of the ragged gorge. For
days they clambered up and down the jagged walls of the cut, or
skirted its densely covered margin. Twice Harris fell into the
brawling stream below, and was fished out by Rosendo, his eyes
popping, and his mouth choked with uncomplimentary opinion regarding
mountain travel in the tropics. Once, seizing a slender vine to aid
him in climbing, he gave a sudden lurch and swung out unexpectedly
over the gorge, hundreds of feet deep. Again Rosendo, who by this time
had learned to keep one eye on the ground and the other on the
irresponsible Harris, rescued him from his perilous position.

"Why don't you watch where