“Well, quit talking for five minutes and you’ll hear some sounds besides your own!”
They all sat quiet for a few minutes and it came again; a sound like thousands of bees droning their delight in a world overflowing with nectar. Sometimes it would gradually lessen and die away slowly against the rock-ribbed cliffs, like the finale of an organ’s peal, echoing and reëchoing in the dim recesses of an old cathedral. Then it would start again, the same as before. It was weird.
Westy looked to Lola, a question half formed on his lips. She was smiling.
“What’s the joke?”
“I forgot to mention it before,” she said simply.
“What?”
“Only that there’s a legend connected with this place. The lake supposedly is bewitched and the stunted cliff you see up there is haunted!”
CHAPTER XVIII—THE LEGEND OF DEATH RIVER
“Aw, go on!” gasped the skeptical Rip. “Who says it’s haunted?”
“I don’t know who started it,” Lola answered complacently, “but people around here have believed it for many hundreds of years. I could neither deny nor affirm it, never having been in or on the lake or up there.”