They hewed short, broad-bladed paddles out of a cottonwood branch and carefully covered all the things they did not intend to take with them on the following day with broad palm-leaves, to protect them if it rained. When dawn came, it found them on their rafts, paddling into the mouth of the cave. Once inside, Stanley switched on one of the lights that had been tied to the front of his raft, and the bright glare revealed a passage from ten to twenty feet wide with an uneven ceiling of jagged rock fifteen feet above their heads. Swarms of bats, frightened by the unusual visitors, left their hiding-places overhead, and with a flutter of wings dashed out of reach of the circle of light and disappeared. “We have been going over half an hour now,” Ted said, looking at his watch. “Of course we have not made very good time, but we should be nearing the end. Can you see daylight ahead?” “No! The opening is not in sight. But, what is this? Slow up so you won’t bump into me! The water seems to stop here.” “Stop? There must be a bend in the river.” “I can see none.” “Still there must be some open channel. Didn’t we come through here before? Give me the light; perhaps the turn is back here.” They focussed the bright rays in all directions, but to no avail. “Ted!” Stanley cried in sudden consternation. “This _was_ the opening, right here, but it is not here now. It has been blocked up.” “Impossible,” Ted returned in dismay. “Do you mean that we cannot get back into the valley?” “Come ahead and see for yourself.” Ted pushed his way to the front of Stanley’s raft. The latter’s words were all too true, for the opening into the valley was filled with earth and stones of large size. “They learned of our escape from Timichi,” Ted said bitterly, “and knew we would come back. Well, I am not ready to admit that all my visions and hopes are dead; but just now there is nothing but darkness ahead.” “How about dynamite?” Stanley asked suddenly. “We could blast away the rocks in the entrance and get in after all.” “But what could we do against the Inca’s hordes once we were inside?” “Come to think of it, I do not believe they had anything to do with this. They would not dare venture beyond the wall. There must have been a landslide on the slope above. In a region like this earthquakes occur frequently on account of the many volcanoes, and that would explain all this.” They paddled back through the tunnel silently and sadly. All their dreams of wealth had suddenly vanished. It had never occurred to them that something might prevent them from securing the enormous treasure they had discovered. They knew its exact location; its value was so great that no man could estimate it, and to secure it required no further effort than to take it and carry it away. And then--their great disappointment.