He scoffed. 'That's a silly word. In a natural world there is no place for the supernatural.' He grew testy. 'Can I ever teach you, Helen, not to employ words utterly meaningless?'
But Helen was not to be shaken.
'Just the same, it is spooky. I can feel it. Look there.' She pointed. 'There is a hill. There will be a little ring of hills. In the centre of the basin they make would be the pool. And you know what we heard about it before we left San Juan. This whole country is strange, somehow.'
'Strange?' he queried challengingly. 'What do you mean?'
She had not relaxed her hand on his arm. Instead, her fingers tightened as she suddenly put her face forward and whispered defiantly:
'I mean spooky!'
'Helen,' he expostulated, 'where did you get such ideas?'
'You heard the old Indian legends,' she insisted, not more than half frightened but conscious of an eerie influence of the still loneliness and experiencing the first shiver of excitement as she stirred her own fancy. 'Who knows but there is some foundation for them?'
He snorted his disdain and scholarly contempt.
'Then,' said Helen, resorting to argument, 'where did that fire come from? Who made it? Why has he disappeared like this?'