A DESPERATE FIX
Laura and Vi dashed through the field of goldenrod to the spot where
they had last seen Billie Bradley. They called to her and received a
faint answer from somewhere far below.
“She’s gone over the cliff!” gasped Vi.
“There are rocks down there, too,” muttered Laura. She parted the
bushes and peered below. “Billie, Billie! Where are you?”
A voice responded gallantly, battling with fear:
“I’m down here. My dress is caught on something. I daren’t move,
for fear it will tear. If you could reach me a stick or a rope, or
something----”
“Sounds easy!” Laura sprang to her feet and looked wildly about her.
“But where are we going to find the stick or the rope long enough to
reach--Vi, what have you got?”
Vi had dashed through the field of goldenrod to a wooded patch in the
background. Now she returned, bearing a long, forked stick.
“Looks like an uprooted tree,” gasped Laura hysterically.
“So it is, I guess. If it’s only long enough to reach Billie!”
The two girls flung themselves face downward on the edge of the cliff.
They were almost afraid to part the bushes and look below for fear
Billie had already disappeared.
She was still there, clinging desperately to the rocky, moss-covered
face of the cliff. One hand clutched a runner of tough vine, the other
clawed helplessly at loose dirt. Her feet could find no hold whatever,
but dangled, impotent and useless, over the glazed surface of a huge,
flat rock.
The thing that had saved her from being dashed upon the pointed rocks
at the foot of the cliff was the clump of dwarfed bushes growing
between the rocks in which her stout linen dress had caught and held.
The dress still held. But if it gave way, or if the clump of bushes
should come loose from the rocks, what would happen to Billie Bradley?
This agonized thought found an echo in the hearts of Laura Jordon and
Vi Farrington as they lay there on the edge of the cliff, staring
downward.
Laura impatiently caught the long stick from Vi’s trembling hand.
“I’m stronger than you are. Let me try!”
At the spot where the two girls lay, Billie was almost directly beneath
them. If the stick proved long enough, it would be an easy matter for
her to grasp it with her one free hand. If it proved long enough----
Laura lowered the stick over the side of the cliff, hoping, praying,
that it would reach Billie’s groping hand.
There! It was extended to the utmost and still came a good two feet
short of the imperiled girl.
“Vi, hold my feet!” commanded Laura. “Hold me so I can’t go over
myself. I’m going to try once more.”
With Vi clinging to her feet, Laura wriggled further over the edge of
the cliff. Having progressed as far as she could and being herself in
imminent danger of losing her balance and plunging head downward upon
those sharp-pointed rocks, Laura clung there, stretching her muscles
until they ached, striving to bring the stick within the grasp of
Billie’s groping fingers.
The stick would not reach. Billie still hung there, at the mercy of the
stout material in her dress, which might give way at any moment. What
were they to do?
While the girls are striving desperately to find an answer to this
question, a moment will be taken to introduce Billie Bradley and her
chums to those who have not already made their acquaintance.
The three girls had been chums since those good old days when Billie
Bradley had inherited the queer old house at Cherry Corners, as related
in the first volume of this series, entitled, “Billie Bradley and Her
Inheritance.” In the attic of the queer old house Billie and her chums
had discovered a small fortune in rare old postage stamps and coins.
This lucky discovery later proved the open sesame to Three Towers Hall,
the boarding school toward which Billie had long turned yearning, but
none-too-hopeful, eyes.
Life at Three Towers had exceeded even Billie’s happy expectations.
To be sure, there had been a few heartaches, a few defeats, but these
were more than offset by the many victories, the many friends that
Billie won for herself in her new environment. Laura Jordon and Violet
Farrington, long friends and admirers of Billie Bradley, found their
friendship cemented into a firm bond by the mutually shared experiences
at Three Towers Hall.
Later, Billie and her chums spent an exciting and decidedly worthwhile
summer at Lighthouse Island as the guests of Connie Danvers, whose
father owned a summer bungalow there.
Back at Three Towers Hall again, the girls found themselves in the
midst of a mystery, the solution of which brought undreamed-of
happiness to a widow and her three children.
There had been other vacations which the chums had shared, prominent
among them being that interesting and exciting summer spent at Twin
Lakes. Another, more recent adventure was that which befell them at
Treasure Cove where the three girls and their friends unearthed an old
sea chest filled with rare silks, carved ivory, coins, and precious
gems.
In the volume directly preceding this, entitled, “Billie Bradley at
Sun Dial Lodge,” Billie and her chums met with a series of alarming
but fascinating adventures which finally led to the solution of an
astonishing mystery.
Billie, who had been christened Beatrice but was seldom called by the
more formal name, was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, energetic young person,
whose overflowing vitality constantly demanded action. She was the
undoubted leader of her small group and it was a tribute to Billie’s
personality that her friends not only deferred to her, but liked doing
it.
Billie’s family was small, but suited her exactly. Martin Bradley,
her father, was a real estate and insurance broker, at which he was
moderately successful. Mrs. Bradley was a charming woman, loved by her
friends and adored by her family. There was a son, Billie’s brother,
Chetwood, commonly known as Chet. Between this brother and sister was
a genuine regard and a similarity of tastes, a foundation for the best
kind of comradeship.
Perhaps Billie’s very best chum was Laura Jordon. Laura was fair-haired
and blue-eyed and somewhat spoiled by being able to do as she liked
about almost everything. Teddy Jordon was fair-haired and blue-eyed
like his sister, a fine lad who was popular with boys and girls alike.
Raymond Jordon, the father of the likable pair, owned a controlling
interest in the big jewelry factory at North Bend, thus providing his
offspring with a bit more spending money than was strictly good for
them.
Violet Farrington, another very good chum of Billie’s, was an only
child but a very happy one, blessed with a pair of doting parents who
made up to her whatever lack the girl might otherwise have felt in her
brotherless and sisterless state.
Beside Chet Bradley and Teddy Jordon, there was a third lad often found
in the company of Billie and her chums. His name was Ferd Stowing. Ferd
was a likable, easy-going young fellow with a commendable knack for
making other people comfortable.
These three boys attended Boxton Military Academy, the school for boys
on Lake Molata, directly across from Three Towers Hall. When at home
the sextette of young people lived at North Bend, a thriving town
of some twenty thousand inhabitants. Forty miles of railroad travel
transported one from the heart of North Bend to the heart of New York
City. It was a pleasant place to live, as the boys and girls agreed.
During their activities in and about North Bend and at Three Towers
Hall, the girls had encountered many adventures, some thrilling, some
sad, but all more or less spiced with danger. None, however, had found
them in such desperate fix as the one in which they were now involved.
Billie hung over that precipitous drop to the rocks at the base of the
cliff with only the stout cloth of her dress between her and almost
certain death.
It was impossible to get her from above. The ground sloped abruptly and
it was covered by flat rocks and moss so that it would be impossible to
gain a foothold.
Laura sprang to her feet and looked about her desperately.
“If we could only reach her from below, Vi! There’s just a chance we
might be able to climb up to her----”
“There is a path to the lake,” said Vi, her teeth chattering with
excitement. “But it’s all around Robin Hood’s barn. We haven’t time----”
A faint cry reached them, tinged with desperation.
“Girls, do hurry! I can’t cling here much longer! The cloth is
beginning to--tear!”