CHAPTER 9OVER THE PRECIPICE
With the boat hidden in the reeds which grew along the river shore, and everybody carrying some of the baggage that Nick believed might be required, the party plunged into the foothills and slowly arose toward the lower ridges of the mountains.
All the rifles had been cleaned and oiled by Nick Carter and his two assistants. Then the former had inspected them all carefully.
“It would be awkward if some of these guns were to jam just when we were in the middle of a scrimmage with the people over there,” he observed, after he had pronounced them all right.
They came to a belt of forest where the ground rose sharply. On the other side of the thicket was a bare, precipitous rock, which formed a natural barrier to the mysterious land where the rites of the Golden
