“I am afraid they are,” he said.  “It is nearly two years since their last visit, and they only come in summer.  Why?”

“I have a curiosity to see these; and I think I could save the children and give these wild fellows such a lesson that they would trouble you no more—­at any rate for a long time to come.”

“I should be inexpressibly grateful.  But how, senor?”

Whereupon I disclosed my scheme.  It was very simple; I proposed to turn one of the most likely houses in the village into a small fortress which might serve as a refuge for the children and which Gahra and I would undertake to defend.  We had two muskets and a pair of double-barrelled pistols, and the priest possessed an old blunderbuss, which I thought I could convert into a serviceable weapon.  In this way we should be able to shoot down four or five of the misterios before any of them could get near us, and as they had no firearms I felt sure that, after so warm a reception, they would let us alone and go their way.  The shooting would demoralize them, and as we should not show ourselves they could not know that the garrison consisted only of the negro and myself.

“Very well,” said the priest, after a moment’s thought.  “I leave it to you.  But remember that if you fail they will kill you and everybody else in the place.  However, I dare say you will succeed, the firearms may frighten them, and, on the whole, I think the risk is worth running!”

The next question was how to get timely warning of the enemy’s approach.  I suggested posting scouts on the hills which commanded the roads into the valley.  I thought that, albeit the tame Indians were good for nothing else, they could at least sit under a tree and keep their eyes open.

“They would fall asleep,” said Fray Ignacio.

So we decided to keep a lookout among ourselves, and ask the girls who tended the cattle to do the same.  They were much more wide-awake than the men, if the latter could be said to be awake at all.

The next thing was to fortify the priest’s house, which seemed the most suitable for our purpose.  I strengthened the wall with stays, repaired the old trabuco, which was almost as big as a small cannon, and made ready for barricading the doors and windows on the first alarm.

This done, there was nothing for it but to wait with what patience I might, and kill time as I best could.  I walked about, fished in the river, and talked with Fray Ignacio.  I would have gone out shooting, for there was plenty of game in the neighborhood, only that I had to reserve my ammunition for more serious work.

For the present, at least, my idea of exploring the Andes appeared to be quite out of the question.  I should require both mules and guides, and I had no money either to buy the one or to pay the other.

And so the days went monotonously on until it seemed as if I should have to remain in this valley surnamed Happy for the term of my natural life, and I grew so weary withal that I should have regarded a big earthquake as a positive god-send.  I was in this mood, and ready for any enterprise, however desperate, when one morning a young woman who had been driving cattle to an upland pasture, came running to Fray Ignacio to say that she had seen a troop of horsemen coming down from the mountains.