Slim took the chocolate without any scruples regarding its staleness and Katherine and Sahwah started up the hill. Then the rest thought they would like to go into the ravine, too, and all came streaming after.
59The ravine was as dark and mysterious as they could wish, for its high sides kept out the sun and in the gloom the trunks of trees seem twisted into fantastic shapes. The ferns and brakes were very luxuriant, and they waded about in them up to their knees.
“There’s another cedar tree!” cried Gladys, pointing ahead of her. Springing from the steep side of the ravine and towering high above it stood a seventh cedar tree, more lofty and more ancient looking than the others.
“What a peculiar place for a tree to take root,” said Gladys. “It looks as though it would slide down the hill any minute.”
“I reckon it’s firm enough,” said Uncle Teddy. “It’s been hanging on there for considerably over a hundred years, by its size.”
“What’s this on the rock?” asked Sahwah, who had been examining the boulders which lay at the bottom of the ravine just under the tree. She pointed to a mark on one of the stones, an arrow chiseled out of the hard rock. They all crowded around and exclaimed in wonder. What could it mean?
“Maybe somebody’s buried here,” said the Captain.
“Rather a heavy tombstone,” said Uncle Teddy. “And not much of an epitaph. I’ll want more than an arrow on mine.”
60“It must mean something,” said Hinpoha, her romantic imagination fired immediately.
But the consuming interest they had all shown in the arrow on the rock was driven out of them the next moment by a wild uproar at the other end of the ravine–the sound of a great crashing accompanied by a frightful bellow. Then there was another crash; the sound of rock striking against rock, a ripping, tearing, falling sound, a thud and another frightful bellow.