He reined Silver against a bank and slid off, and stood looking around him at the strange hills with the huge, black boulders that looked like houses unless you knew, and the white cliffs that looked--queer--unless you knew they were just cliffs.
For the first time since he started, the Kid wished guiltily that his dad was here or--he did wish the bunch would happen along! He wondered if they weren't camped, maybe, around that point.

Maybe they would hear him if he hollered as loud as he could, which he did, two or three times; and quit because the hills hollered back at him and they wouldn't stop for the longest time--it was just like people yelling at him from behind these rocks.
The Kid knew, of course, who they were; they were Echo-boys, and they wouldn't hurt, and they wouldn't let you see them.

They just ran away and hollered from some other place.

There was an Echo-boy lived up on the bluff somewhere above the house.

You could go down in the little pasture and holler, and the Echo-boy would holler back The Kid was not afraid--but there seemed to be an awful lot of Echo-boys down in these hills.