The Lights on Precipice Peak

By STEPHEN TALL
Illustrated by NEWMAN
How warm should a handshake be? The answer may be more vital than you could guess!
The three young men sat quietly and watched the faint eerie glow. It was ruddy and small, a spot of dull red color. For perhaps five or six minutes it showed, moving slowly along what seemed to be the lip of Bighorn Glacier, six miles away and seven thousand feet up in the thin cold air. Then it vanished.
John Drinkard lowered his binoculars. Well, that's that. You can see it, but still you can't. The glasses don't help a bit.
Spooks! said Chuck Evers. He wriggled his muscular shoulders, slipped down onto the small of his back in the chair, and propped long legs on the porch railing.
Spooks? Carl Royston's brow wrinkled puzzledly. Drinkard and Evers both watched with suppressed amusement as his face suddenly cleared and he almost smiled. Ah, yes, apparitions.
Haunts, Chuck said. Hobgoblins. Ghosts. Banshees.
Banshees wail, said Drinkard.
Royston's pale eyes glowed with interest. This you can say for the lights of Precipice Peak—they are quiet.
Are you sure? John Drinkard asked. How do you know that every coyote you hear is a coyote?
At any rate, said Royston, if they make sounds, they are the sounds of the country. He shivered slightly. A miserable country, he added.