had gathered round it, where they could easily be
seen.

"Then they haven't bolted, after all!" said O'Brien, in surprise.

"It doesn't look like it; but don't let us be too sure. You stay in
this hollow while I investigate. You are not a good performer on
all-fours."

"No," said he, chuckling, and I was afraid that, in spite of our
danger, he would laugh aloud; "this is a sort of circus trick not
taught at our school. Can you judge where to find me again?"

"Easily, if they don't let the fires out;" and I crawled further into
the camp, and in the direction of a second fire. It looked very
comfortable, but no one was there to take advantage of it, and the
third and fourth I visited were equally deserted.

The trick was plain enough now. After lighting the fires, the three
battalions had marched off, leaving just sufficient men to tend them,
and to act as sentries. The sight of a soldier crossing the camp to
throw fresh fuel on one of the fires changed suspicion into certainty,
and I hastened back to O'Brien with my information.

"That's an old dodge," said he, "but a good one. It almost always pays
in this part of the world. Now let us get back and tell the colonel."

Cautiously we crawled back, waited nearly an hour for a favourable
chance to dodge the sentries, and then hurried down the pass.

"Thanks," exclaimed the colonel, on hearing our report. "We can afford
now to let the men have a couple of hours' sleep; they need it."

"And I daresay some of the officers will lie down, if you press them,"
laughed O'Brien.--"What do you say, Crawford?"

"Well, the colonel need not press me much," I replied.

"Good boy! I'm pleased you're so willing to do as you're told."

"Well, he has certainly earned a rest," observed Miller. "But we are
moving sharp at daybreak, remember."

"There's nothing strange in that," said I sleepily; "the wonder would
be if we didn't." At which the colonel and O'Brien laughed heartily.

Next day we marched into the village of Puruchuco, on the eastern side
of the mountain, and about six miles distant from the small town of
Huamantanga, where the Royalists had halted. Owing to the difficulty
of obtaining food, Colonel Miller now sent most of our infantry back to
Macas; the Indians were thrown forward to act as a screen in front;
while the rest of us bivouacked in some meadows near the village. The
next day the colonel and I rode to within five hundred yards of
Huamantang