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.