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.