“Don’t get discouraged, leave it to Hervey, he’ll take us there,” I said. “There’s a nice breeze up here. Watch out for an airplane, maybe we’ll be rescued.” “Were you ever in a well?” Hervey asked us. “No, is it much fun?” I said. He said, “It’s too slow, quicksand is better, it’s quicker. I’d like to have a ride on a shooting star.” “Comets are pretty good,” Garry said. “I was never on one of those,” I said. Pee-wee said, “The night is coming on. What are we going to do? I’m all stiff from hanging onto this beam.” “Let’s get down on the platform again,” Hervey said. “Follow your leader.” He scrambled over to the ladder and went down and we all followed him to the gallery below. Looking out of the little window there we could see the sun going down; it was all big and red and it made the woods all red too away over to the west. That was where Temple Camp was. It began to seem kind of spooky in that steeple on account of the sun going down and everything being so quiet. The old, ramshackle houses below us, with their roofs falling in and their windows all broken made it seem even more lonesome where we were. Gee whiz, the woods aren’t lonesome, but places where people used to be are lonesome. All of a sudden Garry said, “Listen—shh.” “It’s just those timbers creaking above us,” I said. He said, “It sounded like a voice.” “Well if it’s a voice up there where the bell is,” Warde said, “it hasn’t got any body to it. I can see all around up there; I can see inside the bell.” Pee-wee just stared at us, “What did I tell you?” he whispered. “Voices without bodies, those are the worst kind. I’m not going to stay up here after dark, I’m——” “Shh—listen,” Warde said. “You mean away off there in the woods?” I said. “I hear that.” “No, not that,” he said; “right above us. Listen. Hear it?” “Kind of like murmuring?” I asked him. “Right up there by the bell,” he said. We all stood stark still, listening. Maybe that bell was thirty or forty feet above us. Just as plain as could be I could hear a sort of murmuring up there. I can’t tell you what it was like, but anyway it wasn’t the timbers creaking or anything like that. It was like a voice. But nobody was up there. It was kind of like _H-l-l-l_. Gee whiz, it gave me the shudders to listen to it. CHAPTER XXIII WE GO TO THE RESCUE Oh boy, I have to admit I was scared. Even Hervey didn’t start joking about it, but just listened. Away, way off somewhere I could hear something like a voice, but it wasn’t that that we heard above us. All of a sudden Hervey said, “I’m not going to hang around here any longer, you can bet. I don’t like this place. I don’t want to spend the night here. Come on, follow your leader, take a chance.”