After lunch Lola led the way out of a narrow ravine, up ever higher, and thence out on a broad terrace. Brilliant Alpine plants and flaming cactus were growing in profusion, and further on they came to a lake gleaming like a mirror in the afternoon sun.
On all three sides of it were towering cliffs covered with pine and great piles of gray rock.
On one side of the lake, directly opposite them, straight upwards from the water’s edge, a cliff was indented in places like a narrow stairway and ended abruptly in what looked to be a depression from where they stood. It attracted the onlooker at once by virtue of this peculiarity.
Where the other cliffs had piled their growth of rock until they seemed to merge themselves with the white-capped crest of the Range this one resembled a dwarfed step-sister, stunted and despised by its loftier kin.
The younger members of the party sat down at the edge of the lake, while Billy and Mr. Wilde maneuvered around for some good scenes. Then they went back a way to the broad terrace and left them to their own interests for awhile.
Rip was talking loudly and skipping some stones in the lake. It was this that Westy thought at first made the sounds he was hearing. But he heard it again, and again, whenever Rip lowered his voice or when Lola answered.
“What’s that noise, I wonder?”
“What noise?” Rip inquired.
“I don’t know what it is, that’s why I’m asking you. Can’t you hear it?”
“No! You’re crazy!”