I am looking for a childrens/YA book I would have read in the early 1980s (probably not written before 1950) in which there was a rock formation known as the Needle, because it was needle-shaped, with a hollow at the top, in which was a haystack – so at some point the hero or heroine was looking for something in a haystack in the Needle. That is the one detail I remember.
There are two books I remember (I think) having this as a plot point. One was Gordon Swarthout’s Bless the Beasts and the Children, and the second was Gordon Shirreffs, Mystery of the Haunted Mine.
My memory of both books is pretty hazy, but I THINK they did.