The next morning early, the Educational Film squad set out early to meet
Lola, who had promised to show them some of the beauties of Raton Range
that no one but a native of the mountains would be cognizant of.
Lola, Westy and Rip walked ahead chatting gayly. Up narrow paths they
went single file. Paths that were partially hidden with underbrush and
had felt the tread of many generations of mankind, both red and white,
were now overgrown from disuse.
Above them the barren-coned peaks rose high into the cloudless blue, and
the weird-shaped forms stood like sentinels guarding the miles of
untracked mountain wilderness.
After lunch Lola led the way out of a narrow ravine, up ever higher, and
thence out on a broad terrace. Brilliant Alpine plants and flaming
cactus were growing in profusion, and further on they came to a lake
gleaming like a mirror in the afternoon sun.
On all three sides of it were towering cliffs covered with pine and
great piles of gray rock.
On one side of the lake, directly opposite them, straight upwards from
the water’s edge, a cliff was indented in places like a narrow stairway
and ended abruptly in what looked to be a depression from where they
stood. It attracted the onlooker at once by virtue of this peculiarity.
Where the other cliffs had piled their growth of rock until they seemed
to merge themselves with the white-capped crest of the Range this one
resembled a dwarfed step-sister, stunted and despised by its loftier
kin.
The younger members of the party sat down at the edge of the lake, while
Billy and Mr. Wilde maneuvered around for some good scenes. Then they
went back a way to the broad terrace and left them to their own
interests for awhile.
Rip was talking loudly and skipping some stones in the lake. It was this
that Westy thought at first made the sounds he was hearing. But he heard
it again, and again, whenever Rip lowered his voice or when Lola
answered.
“What’s that noise, I wonder?”
“What noise?” Rip inquired.
“I don’t know what it is, that’s why I’m asking you. Can’t you hear it?”
“No! You’re crazy!”
“Well, quit talking for five minutes and you’ll hear some sounds besides
your own!”
They all sat quiet for a few minutes and it came again; a sound like
thousands of bees droning their delight in a world overflowing with
nectar. Sometimes it would gradually lessen and die away slowly against
the rock-ribbed cliffs, like the finale of an organ’s peal, echoing and
reëchoing in the dim recesses of an old cathedral. Then it would start
again, the same as before. It was weird.
Westy looked to Lola, a question half formed on his lips. She was
smiling.
“What’s the joke?”
“I forgot to mention it before,” she said simply.
“What?”
“Only that there’s a legend connected with this place. The lake
supposedly is bewitched and the stunted cliff you see up there is
haunted!”