Chapter XIX: Rip Makes Himself Heard

“Shut up!” Westy said vehemently and looked meaningly at Rip when Lola paused in her narrative.

“What are you chirping about, Birdie?” Rip came back, surprised. “I didn’t say a word yet!”

“Well, you were going to and you can thank me now that you didn’t!”

“I’ll be darned!” was all that Rip could find suitable to say.

“Do you promise not to quarrel again--either of you, if I finish?” Lola sounded serious.

“Sure, we do!”

“When the enemy reached the cliff that had been so precipitous, their amazement knew no bounds to see that it had been reduced to half its former size and the cliff dwellings a mass of solid gray rock, as if they had never been there at all. Running all the way down to the water’s edge, a series of indentations had been formed as if chiseled by a human hand.

“All was as silent and still as the tomb. The great waterfall rushing over the cliff to the west had disappeared as well and the rocky surface that had been wet with the spray for ages was now bone dry in the hot sun.

“Beneath, where the river had swirled and eddied and flowed on as far as the eye could see, was now a small, placid mountain lake, and they sought to penetrate (with their bewildered eyes) all this mystery in its mirror-like depths.

“For _there is mystery_ in its depths, say what you like. Looking at its calm surface, you are vastly deceived, because it is said that there are no end of little whirlpools underneath that suck one down to the bottomless depths. Fish cannot live in it; I have seen that proven, and the water is almost hot at times. A singular thing, you know, for a mountain lake.”

Westy nodded, eyes wide with wonderment, but Rip, as was to be expected, hadn’t flopped entirely yet.

“All right, Lola! So far I don’t say I do believe and I don’t say I don’t.” Rip was at least trying to keep within the law governing the status of a gentleman. “What I want to know is, what has that to do with the whole blooming outfit being haunted?”

“This is where that part comes in,” Lola said, quite undaunted. “When the Indian women chanted their death hymn they invoked the God of the Waterfall to punish the enemy tribe for the willful destruction of their braves. Also, they called upon the God of the Forest to make its depths so impenetrable that the cruel redmen would become lost and never find their way out.

“There was a landslide of rock that obliterated the dwellings, after the wholesale sacrifice had been made. And, the forest god, coöperating with the God of the Waterfall, ingeniously devised the natural stairway to entice the warriors down to cross the lake, whose waters became warm to make the snare more alluring.

“Those of the enemy who didn’t drown in the lake, which the waterfall is now supposed to be hiding beneath, became lost and died in the jungle that had grown on the cliffs. That forest there is also said to be infested with snakes.

“And so to this day, boys, no man dares entrust himself to the warm waters of the lake, or dares to traverse the forest fastnesses with impunity!”

“Huh!” exclaimed Rip with perfect self-assurance. “I’d like to see any one stop me if I wanted to go!”

“My dear Rip,” explained Lola, “I certainly wouldn’t try to stop you, but at the same time I surely wouldn’t urge you. In all my family history we have known no man who would think of attempting it and I am proud to say they weren’t cowards, either. I guess it was that they had enough trouble without going to seek for it.”

“Oh, don’t listen to him, Lola! He says more than his prayers!” Westy assured her.

“I do, do I?” Rip was plainly aroused.

“Sure!”

“Well, what would you say if I told you I was going in that lake for a darn good swim to-morrow?”

“I’d say you were just a poor nut, and that if you did, it’d be your own funeral!”