C. C.
By nine I was climbing to Pedro Miguel police station on its knoll
with the young Greek who had exchanged hats with the assassin
after the crime. That afternoon a volunteer joined me. He was a
friend of the wounded men, a Peruvian black as jade, but without a
suggestion of the negro in anything but his outward appearance. He
was of the size and build of a Sampson in his prime, spoke a
Spanish so clear-cut it seemed to belie his African blood, and had
the restless vigor acquired in a youth of tramping over the Andine
ranges.
I piled him into a cab and we rolled away to East Balboa, to climb
upon an empty dirt-train and drop off as it raced through
Miraflores, the sturdy legs of the Peruvian saving him where his
practice would not have. Up in the bush between Pedro Miguel and
Paraiso we found a hut where the Greek had stopped for water and
gone on up a gully. We set out to follow, mounting partly on hands
and knees, partly dragging ourselves by grass and bushes up what
had been and would soon be again a torrential mountain stream. For
hours we tore through the jungle, up hills steeper than the path
of righteousness, following now a few faint foot-prints or
trampled bushes, now a hint from some native bush dweller. The
rain outside vied with the sweat within as to which would first
soak us through.
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