oast of Peru only a few months
before. It was natural, indeed, that in such a region, where the
phenomena and the forces of nature are so wild and vast, one incident or
adventure should follow quickly on the heels of another, but it did not
seem to be altogether natural that each incident should be more singular
or tremendous than its predecessor. In short, there seemed to be
neither rhyme nor reason, as Larry said, in the fact that they should be
continually getting out of the frying-pan into the fire. Yet so it was,
and, now that they had left the low country and plunged into the
magnificent recesses of the great Andes, the metaphor was still
applicable, though not, perhaps, equally appropriate, for, whereas the
valleys they had quitted were sweltering in tropical heat, the mountains
they had now ascended were clothed in wintry snow.

Far down in the valleys Will Osten and his friends had left their canoe,
and hired mules with an _arriero_ or mule-driver to guide them over the
difficult and somewhat dangerous passes of the Andes. They had reached
the higher altitudes of the mountains when we again introduce them to
the reader, and were urging their mules forward, in order to reach a
somewhat noted pass, before the breaking out of a storm which the
arriero knew, from certain indications in the sky, was rapidly
approaching. The party consisted of four--Will, Larry, Bunco, and the
arriero--with three baggage-mules.

On reaching an elevated position at a turn in the road whence they could
see far in advance, they halted.

"Why, I had supposed _this_ was the pass," said Will Osten, turning to
Bunco; "ask the arriero how far off it is now."

"Troth, it's my belaif that there's no pass at all," said Larry,
somewhat doggedly, as he shifted about uneasily in the saddle; "haven't
we bin comin' up to places all day that we thought was the pass,--but
they wasn't; I don't think Mister Arryhairo knows it hisself, and this
baist of a mule has blistered my hands an' a'most broke my arms with
baitin' of it--not to mintion other parts o' me body. Och, but it's a
grand place, afther all--very nigh as purty as the Lakes of Killarney,
only a bit bigger."

The country was indeed a little bigger! From the dizzy ledge on which
they stood a scene of the wildest sublimity met their gaze, and, for a
few minutes, the travellers regarded it in profound silence. Mountains,
crags, gorges, snowy peaks, dark ravines, surrounded them, spr