THE RESCUE
The other girls—and even Mrs. Case—came running to the spot. The teacher kept the other girls back and herself took Josephine Morse's place and gripped Laura firmly as the latter hung over the brink of the cliff.
Laura continued to call; but although she thought she had seen the boy on the shelf below move, he did not reply. His face was very white.
"He's unconscious! He's hurt!" Laura gasped.
"How do you suppose he ever got there?" demanded Jess.
"The question is: How shall we get him up?" demanded Mrs. Case, briskly.
"I can get down to him—I know I can," cried Laura.
"You'll break your neck climbing down there!" declared the doctor's daughter. "I wouldn't risk it."
"But he's helpless. He may be badly hurt," reiterated Laura.
"My dear! it would be very dangerous climbing down to the ledge," warned Mrs. Case. "And how would you get back?"
"But somebody has got to go down to get Billy," declared Laura. "And perhaps moments may be precious. We don't know how long he has been there, or how badly he is hurt."
"Laura can climb like a goat," said her chum, doubtfully.
"And I'm going to try it If we only had a rope——"
"I'll run back to that farmhouse and get a rope—and some men to help, perhaps," suggested Jess.
"Good!" exclaimed Laura. "Go ahead, and I'll be getting down to Billy meanwhile."
"That would be best, I suppose," admitted their teacher. "But be very careful, Laura."
Jess had started on the instant, and her fleet steps quickly carried her out of sight. Laura swung herself down to the first rough ledge by clinging to the bushes that grew on the edge of the cliff.
"Oh, perhaps I am doing wrong!" moaned Mrs. Case, at this juncture. "I may be sending her to her death!"
"Don't worry!" called up Laura, from below. "It is not so hard as it looks."
But there were difficulties that those above could not see. Within twenty feet the girl came to a sheer wall which extended all along the face of the cliff, and fifteen feet in height. It looked for a minute as though she were balked.
But a rather large tree grew just above this drop, and its limbs extended widely and were "limber." Laura climbed into this tree as well as any boy, worked herself along the bending limb, which was tough, and finally let herself down and swung from it, bearing the lithe limb downward with her weight.
Her feet did not then touch the shelf below, however, and she really overhung the abyss. It was a perilous situation and she was glad that Mrs. Case could not see from above what she was doing.
To make matters worse, it was doubtful if she could climb back upon the limb. Muscular as she was, that was a feat that took real practice to accomplish. She swung there, like a pendulum, neither able to get up, nor daring to drop.
Suddenly something snapped above her. She cast up a fearful glance and saw that the limb was giving with her weight. Dragged down so heavily, the bark and fibres of the wood were parting. There was already a white gash across the tree-trunk where the limb was attached to the tree.
She was falling. The splitting wood warned her that the entire branch was separating from the trunk!
With a crash she fell. Fortunately the splitting flung her toward the face of the cliff. She landed upon her feet, and held her position, letting go of the branch, which whirled down the cliff side to the sea.
Laura, trembling a good deal, gazed down upon the shelf where Billy Long was. He had not been disturbed, but lay as when she first saw him from the top of the cliff.
"But we'll never be able to get up this place," murmured Laura, looking up at the sheer wall down which she had come so perilously.
But from this point where she stood to the spot where Billy lay was only a rough scramble. She was beside the youth in a very few moments.
Billy lay senseless, the stain of berries on his lips, and one foot drawn under him. When Laura shook him, he moaned. Then she saw that the shoe had been removed from the hurt foot and the stocking, as well. Billy's ankle was painfully bruised and wrenched; it was colored blue, green and yellow, in streaks, and had evidently been bruised for some time.
"Billy! Billy!" cried Laura, shaking him by the shoulder.
"I—I fell. Oh! Water!" moaned Billy, without opening his eyes.
He was very weak, and completely helpless; nor did he regain consciousness. Laura had to await Josephine's return before she could do anything to aid him.
Then Jess produced nothing but a clothesline; there had been no men at the farm, and she had taken the only rope they had, and run all the way back. But it was a strong line, and there was more than a hundred feet of it.
"You can never raise either of us to the top of the cliff, Mrs. Case," shouted Laura from below. "I am going to take the line, double it, and lower Billy to the shore myself. Somebody can go back to the park and hire that launch that is to let there, and bring it around to this cove. The man will come with it. The rest of you can go through the cave and meet us on the shore, or go back to the park landing."
And so it was arranged. Laura, with the expenditure of considerable ingenuity and muscle, got Billy safely to the foot of the cliff, and then worked her own way down by the rope without cutting her hands. She made a sling of her dress skirt in which to lower Billy, and had she not been a very strong and determined girl she would have dropped him.
The adventure broke up the walking party for that afternoon; but Short and Long, after being three weeks away from home, in hiding, was returned to his father and sister, and the doctor was called to attend him. He was too weak and confused, as yet, to tell his story.