The woman covered her face with her hands, and began trembling and
sobbing. Rena put her arms around her mother's neck and tried to comfort
her, as if _she_ had been the mother instead of the child.

The sound broke out again, and this time it was louder and more distinct
than before. As the melancholy echoes died away, Rena rose, and, taking
her mother's hand in hers, led her toward the house.

When they had gone, Brent said, "What do you think that sound is?"

"It's the warning still," said Reinfelter. "It's the warning of death."

"What is it made by?"

"A ghost. It goes up there in the mount'ins an' calls, an' the one it
calls is soon in the graveyard already. It's called the mother, or Rena,
or me, this night."

"Maybe I was the one it meant."

"No; it only calls the Reinfelters still. It's been so ever since the
Injun massacree, a long time ago."

"Did that happen here?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather an' his oldest son was up in the mount'ins,
and his wife was a-comin' back from there by herself once. Just as she
got where she could see her little children a-playin' in the yard, three
Injuns jumped out o' the woods that was nigh to the house then, an' run
into the yard an' killed the children right before her eyes. The men up
there heard her scream, an' they run down, an' found her a-layin' there
where she fell, an' they thought she was dead already. She come to
herself ag'in, but after that she just sort o' pined away, an' in less
than two months she died. It's her ghost that goes up there an' calls us
still."

"Did you ever hear the call before?"

"No; I never heard it myself. But the night my little girl died, nine
years ago, she rose up in bed once, an' she says, 'Who is that a-cryin'
up there in the mount'ins?' We couldn't hear nothin' still, but we knew
what _she_ had heard, an' after that we didn't have no more hope."

Brent did not think of the banshee as a positive reality, but he would
not have denied that its existence was possible, and he felt that it
would be useless for him to try to shake the farmer's faith in the
tradition which had such a strong hold on his mind.

After a brief silence, he said he would take a short walk before going
to bed. Leaving the garden, he strolled toward the mountains, which rose
like a vast wall above the foot-hills at their base.

As he drew near the rising ground which marked the verge of the valley,
the strange sound once more fell on his ear, and he w