Although Jack did not know it at the time, he was on Mexican soil and far removed from his friends, as he paced the strange secret valley.
“I guess my best plan is to follow that stream,” mused Jack, after a period of thought; “if I’m not mistaken there must be some way out of the valley at the spot where it emerges. At any rate I’ll try it.”
He had walked some distance from the bank of the stream in his explorations, and he now began to re–thread his footsteps. He directed his course toward a big rock that towered up by the bank of the stream, apparently dislodged at some remote time from the summit of the lofty cliffs that hedged the place all about.
When Jack was within a few feet of the rock he was brought to a sudden halt by a startling occurrence.
From behind the monster boulder a human figure emerged, and the next instant Jack was being hailed by the sudden apparition.
Had he beheld the emergence of a supposedly dead man from his tomb, the boy could not have been much more startled. As it was the two cases would have had much in common, for the figure that now advanced toward him was that of a man he had given up for dead—namely, the Mexican who had shared that wild voyage on the raft.
For an instant Jack instinctively threw himself into an attitude of defense. But the next moment he saw that he had nothing to fear from the newcomer. In fact, a more woebegone figure than the Mexican presented it would be hard to imagine. There was a big gash over one of his eyes, his clothing was torn to ribbons and he limped painfully as he advanced toward Jack.
“How did you come here?” asked Jack in Spanish.
“Ah, señor, surely by a miracle of the saints,” was the reply, as the man raised his eyes to heaven. “I recollect your blow and then nothing more till I found myself cast up on the bank of yonder stream. Call it what you will, I believe that it was a true miracle of Providence that my life was saved.”
“We must both thank a higher power for our deliverance,” said Jack reverently. “I never thought that I should see you alive again.”
“But who are you?” demanded the Mexican. “How came you on our raft before it went adrift?”
Jack thought for a moment before replying, and then he decided that it could do no possible harm, under the circumstances, to tell who he was.