The path became narrow and shelf-like. The verdure below them disappeared. The valley grew narrower and more wild. The river was condensed almost out of sight between steep black precipices. Their horses walked in single file and the riders made no attempt to guide them. The strange scene awoke a conflict of emotion in the minds of the two white men. The sense of danger could not overcome the mingled admiration and awe which some of nature’s weird manifestations aroused in them. The marks of a terrific convulsion of gigantic forces were all about them. There were no signs of volcanic action, but the disturbance seemed to have been even more violent than that which accompanies the eruption of a volcano. Turning after a time a bend in the trail, the leader of the file suddenly stopped, waited till the white men had approached, and then pointed silently with his long arm to the opposite side of the gorge. Brent gave an exclamation of amazement. His companion was too astonished to speak. They saw the opposite mountain, which had seemed more massive and regular than the one they were circling, apparently cleft in two by a narrow line from peak to deepest base. It was as though the stroke of a mighty knife or the blow of a colossal ax had split the vast mass in twain. The heart of the great mountain had become transparent and they looked through it to bright sunshine and green fields in the plain beyond. It was a narrow glimpse, a single, thin column of light that pierced the black cone from summit to foundation. If they moved a few steps forward or back the phenomenon was not visible, the mountain became as dense and impenetrable as the rock upon which they were standing. The two white men gazed in silent wonder at this evidence before them of a fit of mighty fury to which some natural or supernatural power had given vent. Nature’s wildest, maddest chaos was all about them. Even the Indians, to whom the scene was not new, were awed by the grim grandeur, the anarchy of matter that reigned supreme in this domain of Titanic wrath. The six horsemen grouped themselves in a small niche, where the pathway widened into the side of the mountain. The horses seemed to partake of the mute solemnity of the spot. They stood silent and statue-like as though the intrusion of life was a desecration amid these monuments of a vanished rage. Minutes passed without a word being spoken. At length, when the first spell of a dead but mighty power had relaxed its hold upon them, Casimiro raised his hand, pointed with long, bony finger into the heart of the valley below them, and said: “White men, there lies the curse from which you must rescue my people.” They looked and amid the gathering shadows in the depths they saw a single gleam of white. And presently they hurried on. CHAPTER III. WHERE GOLD WAS AS DROSS.