Peter looked round with interest. Ever since they had left the wood and the first white gate, they had been climbing. Now there were loose stones underfoot, and the road was now but a rough track. They had reached a little plateau at the foot of a rocky gorge which cut up into the side of the mountain on their right. A grey old signpost with one weather-beaten arm pointing up the valley road, read "Black Dingle to Devil's Chair".

There was something eerie and frightening about this place. Suddenly she knew why the gipsies shunned it and said it was evil. She looked and saw the big, black mass of the Devil's Chair athwart the skyline six hundred feet above her, and realized why those who lived in its shadow felt there was something wicked about it. Then she looked up the Dingle and saw that, unlike the lovely green turf and bracken of Hatchholt, this track was wild and rough, and that even the stream which crossed the little plateau a few yards in front of her ran black and sullen. She shivered a little and turned to Jenny as a mournful whistle broke the silence.

"P'raps we oughtn't to go any farther," Jenny said. "P'raps that was one of the Whistlers. I've never exactly heard them, but maybe that's one."

"What do you mean, Jenny? What Whistlers?"

"Why, the Seven Whistlers, of course. Haven't you ever heard of them?"

Peter shook her head.

"No, I haven't, and you can tell me about them as we climb - and about your great adventure, too. I didn't come all the way up here just to look at this silly old signpost, but to explore, and I'm jolly well going to do it... Come on, Jenny! Don't be stupid. Come and lead the way and then when the others come we shall know where to take them... Now tell me about the Whistlers..."

Jenny gulped and turned up the track.

"All right then. I don't care really and I'll tell you my adventure too. I remember Dad telling me once that the Whistlers are seven mysterious birds sometimes heard whistling all together at night. When you hear them in the night like that it's bad, and the miners round here often wouldn't go to work because an accident might happen to them... it's horrid. I hate them."

"Well, you needn't worry about that whistle," said the practical Peter, "because it was a curlew. We have them at home and it's no use trying to frighten me with them. Now tell me of your adventure."

"P'raps I don't want to tell you now," replied the aggrieved Jenny. "What's the sense if you don't believe me before I start? I believe you're laughing at me."

"No, I'm not laughing at you, Jenny. Let's climb as far as we can first, and then you tell me your story."