Disgusted and helpless, Perez and the examinador betook themselves to reading tattered newspapers issued at Lima a month before, and Marcoy to his note-book.  Suddenly a ferocious wild-beast cry was heard coming from the woods, and while the Indian porters tried to run away, and the white men looked at each other with apprehension, Pepe Garcia and Aragon appeared in the distance.  Their arms were interlaced in a brother-like manner, they were poising themselves with much care on their legs, and they were drunk.  Well had the elder interpreter said that he was not jealous of Aragon.  They rolled forward toward the party, repeating their outrageous duet, whose reception by the staring peons appeared to gratify them immensely.

The mozo, feeling his secondary position, had enervated himself slightly—­the superior was magisterially tipsy.  He wore a remarkable hat entirely without a brim, and patched all over the top with a lid of leather.  His face, marked up to the eyes with the blue stubble of that beard which filled him with pride as a sign of European extraction, was swollen and hideous with drunkenness.  He carried, besides the fearful blunder-buss of the night before, a belt full of pistols and hatchets.  A short infantry-sword was banging away at his calves, and two long ox-horns rattled at his waist.  The interpreters had been partaking of a little complimentary breakfast with the muleteers in whose care the animals had gone off to Marcapata.

[Illustration:  “Chaupichaca was marked with A square terminal pillar.”]

A concentration of energy on the part of the chiefs of the expedition was required to set in movement this unpromising assemblage.  The examinador undertook the peons:  he rapped them smartly and repeatedly about the head and shoulders, until they staggered to their feet and declared that they were a match for whole hordes of Indians:  this courage, borrowed from the flask, gave strong assurance that at the first alarm from genuine Chunchos they would take to their heels.  Mr. Marcoy, feeling unable to do justice to the case of the nephew, turned him over to Perez, whose undisguised dislike made the work of correction at once grateful and thorough.  Marcoy himself confronted the stolid and sullen Pepe Garcia, insisting upon the example he owed to the Indian porters and the responsibility of his Caucasian blood.  The half-breed listened for a minute, his eyes fixed upon the ground:  he then shook himself, looked an instant at his employer, and planted himself firmly on his legs.  Then, determined to prove by a supreme effort that he was clear-headed and master of his motions, he suddenly drew his sword, hustled the Indians in a line by two and two, pointed out to Aragon his position as rear-guard, and cried with a voice of thunder, “Adelante!” The porters and peons staggered forward, knocking against each other’s elbows and tottering on their stout legs.  The three white men, burdenless, but regretting their horses, walked as they pleased, keeping the train in sight.  And John the nephew of Aragon’s guitar, dangling at his back, brought up the rear, with its suggestions of harmony and the amenities of life.