Still fascinated with the danger, she looked over again. A sudden dizziness seized her. She tried to step back, but the ledge seemed to crumble beneath her feet!
Staring wildly at the black water below, she was pitched forward—down, down, down!
Then she thought the water would save her; that it was not rough and sharp like the rocks! She thought she would rest awhile on that soft bed! After that she ceased to think!
Dorothy Dale lay there alone, unconscious!
Trundling along the narrow roadway, old Josiah Hobbs and his wife, Samanthy, rode in their farm wagon. They had been to town with berries and in the back of the covered vehicle the empty crates told quite as plainly as the contented smile on the wrinkled faces of the couple, that berries were in demand that morning, and that the Hobbs' kind had met a ready market.
Near the elbow in the lower road, at the foot of the precipice, where lay so still the form of pretty Dorothy Dale, the old horse slowed up. Mrs. Hobbs saw the girl lying by the water's edge.
"Mercy on us, Josiah!" she cried. "It's a girl!"
"Sure as you live!" replied the old man, giving the reins a jerk. "What can have happened to the little one?"
"Pray to goodness she ain't dead!" went on Samanthy. "Let me get to her!" and before her husband could straighten his cramped limbs, she had crawled out, and was beside Dorothy.
"Is she?" asked Josiah, hesitating.