Charles Kuralt was driving up a mountain road in Peru one morning when a man appeared suddenly out of the trees by the road. He was wearing a black hood over his face, waving something in his hands, and shouting. Kuralt was terrified. He knew that the man must be a gun-wielding bandit. He was trying to decide whether it would be safer to plunge ahead, or drive back down the road, when the man shouted again, and began stumbling and running as fast as he could toward Kuralt's car. That settled it. Charles put his car into gear and bolted straight ahead. But the strange man changed his course to intercept him on the road. Charles drove for his life.

The man reached the road, removed the hood from his face, and waved the object in his hand frantically just as Kuralt zoomed past him. Then he s…