The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas. McCarter Margaret Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ the side of the high wall reached above the crest, as they do across the street from my own home. Just ahead of us, as we hurried, I caught sight of a flat slab of the shelving rock slipped aside and barely balancing on the edge, one end of it bending down the treetops as if newly slid into that place. All about the stone the thin sod of the bluff's top was cut and trampled as if a struggle had been there. We examined it carefully. A horse's tracks were plainly to be seen.

      "Something happened here," Le Claire said. "Looks like a horse had been urged up to the very edge and had kept pulling back."

      "And that stone is just slipped from its place," Clayton Anderson declared. "Something has happened here since the rains."

      As we came to the edge, we saw a pile of earth recently scraped from the stone outcrop above.

      "Somebody or something went over here not long ago," I cried.

      "Look out, Phil," Bill Mead called, "or somebody else will follow somebody before 'em – "

      Bill's warning came too late. I had stepped on the balanced slab. It tipped and went over the side with a crash. I caught at the edge and missed it, but the effort threw me toward the cliff and I slid twenty feet. The bushes seemed to part as by a well-made opening and I caught a strong limb, and gained my balance. I looked back at the way I had come. And then I gave a great shout. The anxious faces peering down at me changed a little.

      "What is it?" came the query.

      I pointed upward.

      "The nicest set of hand-holds and steps clear up," I called. "You can't see for the shelf. But right under there where Bud's head is, is the best place to get a grip and there's a foothold all the way down." I stared up again. "There's a rope fastened right under there. Bend over, Bud, careful, and you'll find it. It will let you over to the steps. Swing in on it."

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