Page:Young Hunters in Porto Rico.djvu/132

128 narrow, that Dick wondered how a horse might find his way without slipping. Yet the native assured him that horses sometimes came that way with heavy burdens on their backs.

"Da get use to it, señor," he added. "But him bad—sometimes fall an' go dead." And Dick believed him.

The first range passed, they began to descend into a valley. Here the oranges, bananas and other tropical fruit grew in profusion, and in the brush could be seen numerous wild coffee berries just turning a beautiful red. The boys tasted them, to find them very bitter; "not a bit like cooked coffee," as Don put it.

"It's the ripeness and roasting that brings out the flavor," said Robert Menden.

Presently they came to a mountain torrent, all of twenty feet wide and ten to twelve feet deep. There was no bridge, but a large palm tree lay from bank to bank, and over this they made their way, one following the other.

"What about horses here?" questioned Leander. "You don't mean to say they walk this sort of a tight-rope."

"No, horses go up de water and walk on rocks," answered Carlos Remora.

Danny was the last to, set foot on the tree, the others being some distance ahead. He was over the very center of the stream when a large