The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

Please let me try it again and go down to Janie.”
    “There’s something in what she says,” Dan told Jim reluctantly. “We can hold on to her from up here. She couldn’t be in any real danger.”
    “He’s right, Jim! Don’t you see, Brian?” Trixie begged. “Jim, fasten the ropes to me, please. If it’s all right to move Janie, we’ll have her back up here faster’n you can say Voostenwalter Schimmelpennick!” Trixie was crying and laughing at the same time.
    “Janie,” she called, “are you all right?”
    “Yes, Trixie,” Janie called back, faintly. They could hardly hear her. “Dirt keeps falling....”
    “There’s your answer,” Trixie told Brian and Jim. “I’m not going to waste any more time. I’m going!” Jim dropped his arms helplessly. “She might as well go. If we don’t let her do it, she’ll just take off into space, and darned if I don’t believe she can even fly!”
    Trixie, triumphant, held out her arms, and the boys fastened the ropes around her. They checked the other ends, looped tight around the trees. Then they watched as Trixie crept slowly—slowly—testing every few inches, crawling carefully till she reached the rim.
    Slowly she dropped her feet over the edge. The ropes grew taut.
    Down she went, dangling free, reaching for a foothold in the yellow clay of the cliff’s sharp side-down, as the boys played out the ropes in response to her sharp tugs—down, till she stood on the jutting ledge where Janie lay, caught among the tough, thick branches of a cliffside pine.
    “Janie,” she cried, “Janie, are you all right?”
    “I think... so. I can't seem to—to pull myself free. Oh, Trixie!”
    “Thank heaven we found you,” Trixie said fervently. “Don’t struggle, Janie. Let me try to get you loose. No, no—just stay still while I pull on this biggest branch.”
    Carefully, gently, Trixie pried the gnarled pine branch away from Janie’s imprisoned arms and legs.
    “There,” she said, putting her arm back of the girl’s slight shoulders. “That old branch must have bruised and rubbed you terribly, but it did hold you, and it saved your life. There—can you sit up?” Janie, stiff and weak, rose unsteadily to her knees, then rested a moment. Then, with Trixie’s arm firmly around her waist, she stood erect, trying to repress a groan, her left arm drawn close to her body.
    “Your arm... is it broken?” Trixie cried, frightened. “How can the boys pull you up?”
    “It isn’t my arm,” Janie said quickly, “and nothing’s broken. It’s my wrist; it may be sprained.”
    “It will hurt dreadfully when you’re lifted.”
    “Try me!” Janie said gallantly; then, with a rush of strength, she called up to the boys, “I’m ready to go!”
    Nothing happened.
    “Didn’t they hear me?” Janie asked.
    “I hope not. It’s a good thing if they didn’t. You don’t even have the ropes tied under your arms. You see, they have to stand quite a way back from the edge. The rim of that bluff is eroded underneath. It wouldn’t hold the boys’ weight. It’s as crumbly as a piece of cake.”
    “I found that out,” Janie said in a trembling voice. “Wasn’t I foolish? Trixie, you’ll have to tie these ropes under my arms. I can’t quite manage. But let’s hurry before your flashlight goes out. Trixie, if any harm comes to you...“
    “It won’t,” Trixie said, her voice strong and confident. “I prayed my way down here, and I’ll pray us both back to firm ground.”
    She tugged at the ropes till they were firm. “Thank heaven for Brian’s Scout training. I’d never know how to make a running knot,” Trixie said. “There you are, Janie. You’re ready to go now.” Raising her head, Trixie whistled: bob, bob-white!
    From above, the answering glad call came: bob, bob-white!
    “Creep like a mouse when you go back up over that brim,” Trixie warned. “Safe landing!”
    Without realizing it, she covered her eyes. I’m, not going to look, she thought as Janie’s feet left the ground. I’ll just stand here and do what I told Janie I’d do—pray.
    For what seemed hours Trixie huddled against the face of the rock, listening. She imagined she heard scratching as Janie’s reaching toes touched the hard, rocky side and bounced away... imagined she heard the boys’ measured panting as they slowly, slowly strained at the ropes. She couldn’t possibly have heard that, of course, but in her mind she followed Janie’s ascent so