"They didn't scalp grandma. They
stole everything she had."
"And is all that stuff down there now?" asked Constance Howard,
round-eyed. "Perhaps if we look we can see something."
There was a concerted rush to the chasm's edge, and the eight girls
plumped down flat on their stomachs, determined to see whatever there was
to be seen.
The sides of the earth fell away sharply, down, down. Betty shouted, and
the empty echo of her voice came back to her.
"The ground's so shaly and crumbly," she said thoughtfully, "that it
would be impossible to let a man down with a rope--the earth would cave
in and bury him."
"I think I see a diamond," reported Libbie. "Don't you see something
glittering down there?"
"Can't even see the bottom," said Bobby curtly. "Much less a diamond. Oh,
girls, to think of those valuables at the bottom of a chasm like this
and none of us able to think up a way to get 'em out."
"Well, lots of people have tried," said Alice reasonably. "If grown-up
men couldn't salvage 'em for grandma, I guess it's nothing to our
discredit that we can't get them."
"We might push Libbie in," suggested Bobby wickedly.
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