kings which, after having lain idle for hundreds of
years, had been again started by the Peruvians. Instead of a shaft
being driven down into the earth, and galleries being cut in various
directions from that shaft, the mines simply consisted of tunnels driven
horizontally into the side of a hill. It was a primitive method, and
one adopted by the Incas; but the ground was so rich and ore so
plentiful that this method was found as good as any other, and cheaper
than most. There were scores of these tunnels, some of which had been
exhausted and abandoned, while the ore was being taken out of others by
truck-loads at a time, the little narrow-gauge tram-lines running from
the tunnel-mouths right down into the village.

By the time that Jim had arrived at his allotted post his fellow-
prisoners had disappeared elsewhere, and he found, to his great joy,
that he was working on the side of the hill remote from all the other
convicts. He could hardly conceal his satisfaction, for everything was
falling out much better than he could possibly have expected; and, under
the influence of his newly awakened hope, he became quite chatty and
affable with the sentry, who gradually thawed under the Englishman's
flow of talk and high spirits. Douglas now found that he was not
expected to extract ore, for indeed there was no tram-line here whereby
it could be carried away. This particular tunnel had been closed up by
a fall of rock as long ago as the sixteenth century and had never since
been worked, and as the Peruvians thought that there might still be a
good supply of ore there, they had determined to open it once more.
This, then, was Jim's task, and he approached the blocked-up tunnel-
mouth determined to do as much work as he possibly could, and thus
endeavour to earn the sentry's good-will, for that, he decided, should
be his first step on the road to freedom.

By the time that dusk had fallen and work had ceased for the day,
Douglas had cleared away several cubic yards of rubble from the tunnel-
mouth, and had also impressed the sentry so favourably that the latter
not only thought himself lucky in having charge of so docile a prisoner,
but also decided that it would not be necessary for him to exercise
quite so much vigilance as he had expected to be obliged to do.

Morning after morning the Englishman and the Peruvian went up to the
tunnel, and the two soon became, to all appearance, very excellent
friends. Jim steadily