"Yes," replied Walter; "give it to me."
He left the wagon and, going up to the bells, gave each a sharp, quick stroke on the side. The sound reverberated again and again, filling all the valley with its clear, musical tone.
"That is not how," said a voice beside him, and an Indian boy about his own age suddenly appeared as though from the earth. He had been sleeping, however, in the shadow of the bells, and the sound had awakened him.
Taking the stick from Walter's hand, he touched them one after another, but softly and slowly. How different were the echoing sounds from those which Walter had evoked!
"You know how to do it," said Mr. Page, handing him a quarter.
"It is in my family," said the boy gravely. "My grandfather, he ring them, and my father, and now I."
"Ah, I see," said Walter. "They are the finest bells I ever heard."
"I think they are the best in the world," said the boy, still with the hickory stick in his hand as they drove away. Charlie had forgotten to ask him for it, and probably he was not averse to keeping such a good defence against snakes and reptiles.
As they proceeded across the valley they could still hear at intervals the soft, delicious notes played upon the ancient bells of his people by him of the third generation of bell-ringers of the fast diminishing, poverty-stricken but still devout Santa Isabels.