Disdaining this remark, Granger went on.
“As for the other matter, it is scarcely strange that some superstitious people should fancy the lake haunted. I believe it got its name in the first place through the tale that regularly, once a year, upon the anniversary of the tragedy, the spirits of the Indian lovers appear upon the cliff, from which they leaped, clasped in each other’s arms.”
Sleuth smothered a snicker, upon which, unable longer to keep still, Crane, who had been deeply absorbed in the legend as related, turned upon him savagely, snapping:
“What’s the matter with yeou, anyhaow? Can’t yeou be half perlite if yeou try? Yeou don’t haf to listen; yeou can go off somewhere all by your lonesome.”
The visitor flashed Sile a glance of thanks.
“There’s another reason,” he stated, “why the lake is supposed to be haunted. Almost everyone around here has heard the story of Old Lonely, the hermit whose deserted hut still stands on Spirit Island.”
“Yep,” nodded Crane eagerly, “I know abaout that yarn.”
“Perhaps the rest of us have never heard it in full,” said Grant. “I’m right sure I haven’t.”
It immediately became apparent that Granger was fully as ready to tell this story as he had been to relate the Indian legend.
“In midwinter some ten years ago,” he began, “it was reported that there was an old man living on Spirit Island. First his smoke was seen rising from the island, and then some men who came here to fish through the ice saw the recluse himself. Their curiosity aroused by the sight of the smoke, they approached the island. But when they drew near a bearded, bare-headed man in tattered garments appeared on the shore with a gun in his hands and a growling dog at his heels, and ordered them away. They attempted to talk with him, but, save to warn them of personal violence if they persisted in intruding, he would make no conversation. All that winter he remained on the island, seen at rare intervals, though the ringing of his axe and the report of his gun were sometimes heard. Naturally, people wondered who the stranger could be, and when the spring fishing came on some sportsmen made a second attempt to land on the island.