The man looked at the girl. In her eyes he read as great bewilderment as his own.
CHAPTER X
THE WHITE MONSTER OF NANNABIJOU
I
Again, after a short interval, the strange gong sounded while the pair stood speechless at the water’s edge. There was something terrifying in its low note as it vibrated out of the early morning stillness of the wilderness. It had seemed to cry out a protest against intrusion in some fastness sanctuary—a warning of ominous things.
“Now where do you suppose that bell is located?” Hammond was first to speak.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Josephine Stone answered. He could see she was suppressing apprehension under her light laughter. “I have heard it before, and it has startled—puzzled me.”
“Perhaps there is an Indian mission of some sort back in those hills,” he suggested, though it struck him it sounded more like a huge gong than a church bell.
The girl shook her head dubiously. “I don’t believe there’s a soul living up there,” she asserted. “Back of here is all barren lands.”
“But there seems to be a well worn trail running up from here,” Hammond indicated. “Have you ever explored it?”
“No, but I’ve wanted to just to find out where that bell is. Mrs. Johnson is afraid we’d get lost in the bush and wouldn’t consent to going unless one of our Indians went with us. The Indians get excited even at mention of it; they say they are afraid of an evil spirit that has its abode in those cliffs they call the Cup of Nannabijou. I’d never have the courage to go alone.”