Putting her hand to the rope, she tested it. “Solid! Solid as the rock itself. Now! Up I go!”
Florence was no weakling. Indeed she was above all else a perfect physical being. No cigarette had ever stained her lips. She had lived clean. She had not neglected her physical inheritance. Boating, swimming, hiking in summer, skating and skiing in winter, kept her ever at her best. A forty-foot climb up a rope with a stone wall for footing was play.
She did not pause to tell herself how easy it would be. A tight gripping at the rope, a quick breath, a leap upward, and she was away. Having scaled the steep portion, she paused for a second breath, then raced upward to find—
“No—no one here!” she breathed as her keen eyes took in every detail, rock, bush, and tree.
“Someone heard me call. Came to my aid, then vanished. How—how weird!”
As if possessed by the idea that the place might be haunted, leaving the rope as it hung, she quickly lost herself on the hillside.
“Where—where have you been?” Greta demanded as she at last hurried into camp. “Have—have you been in great peril?”
Florence stared at her speechless. For a full moment she could not speak. When she found her voice she blurted out:
“Mean to tell me you lowered that rope, then bolted?”
“What rope?” Greta stared.