The romantic and adventurous Westy was thrilled to the utmost. He had fairly hung on Lola’s every word.
“If they say it is, it is!” he cried with emphasis, and believed it because he wanted to believe it.
“Well, maybe it is, but you’ve got to go some to make me believe it, I know that!” Rip was defiant. “Anyhow, if it’s only a legend, why should we have to swallow it? People in those days were likely to believe everything. They didn’t have anything else on their minds! Why, gee whiz, look at those times when the poor dubs practiced witchcraft. Would you believe that now? Huh, I guess not! Then why fall for this kind of stuff? Not a bit of difference between witchcraft and haunted places. It’s all bunk!” Rip was panting for breath.
“Mr. Smarty!” Westy put in, “I hope you’re resting easier with that off your chest! And I’ll tell you one thing, if you call yourself a gentleman, I don’t! Arguing with a lady—you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Weren’t you brought up to believe everything a lady tells you? and if you don’t to keep it to yourself? That’s the way I was brought up! Now can the chin music until Lola tells us what it’s all about. Go on, Lola!”
“Lone Star told it to my grandmother,” she began. “All the old pioneers hereabouts know of it. In fact it had been handed down generation after generation until Black Waters’ time and that is how my Indian kin learned it. Of course, they all believe it implicitly—but that is ill to the purpose just now. The story is what you want to hear.
“Ages ago, as we have all been told, the continent of North America was vastly populated by the red man. Whether of the Aztec race or not, it is not known, but at any rate the tribe I am going to tell you about were cliff dwellers and said to be very intelligent in their way.
“The lake here was then a deep, dangerous river called the River of Death or Death River. It was fed by a gigantic waterfall that came roaring over one of the cliffs yonder. The stream then ran on submerging each little stream in its swift, greedy course. It wanted no tributaries emptying mild waters in its superstrong current. It wanted only itself; its own master and any of those who dared defile these virgin waters were put to death and violently carried downstream and from there emptied into an enormous basin, where the bodies of those who had also dared were devoured by huge fish. That basin is now called Le Purgatoire (The River of Lost Souls) or Purgatory River. Many legends are also told of that river.
“At any rate, the stunted cliff was occupied by this tribe whose homes had been chiseled out of the rock. It was higher then than any of the neighboring cliffs and for many, many years they lived there in peace and prosperity.
“The men were stalwart and handsome and their women folk were reputed far and wide to possess extraordinary beauty and grace. Their braves were lacking however in one thing—prowess in war. They weren’t as skillful with the bow and arrow as their contemporaries who roved the plains.
“But their lives were serene. They hunted and fished; their homes were strong and comfortable and they had the River of Death flowing past their very doors to protect them from envious invaders.