sm many miles away.

"I didn't realize we had walked so far," said Norma, apparently reading
her thoughts. "But I know I am right. Here are the woods and the steep
hill, just as grandma has described them a hundred times. This is
Indian Chasm."

The girls looked at her curiously. Betty had not told them the story,
believing that Alice and Norma should have that sole right. Now Norma
rapidly sketched the outlines for them and they listened breathlessly,
for surely this true story was more thrilling than any piece of fiction,
however highly colored.

"I never heard of anything so romantic!" was Libbie's comment.

To which Bobby retorted with cousinly severity:

"Romantic? Where do you see anything romantic in a band of Indians
scalping a peaceful white family?"

"Oh, Bobby!" protested Norma, laughing. "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. "Then she could tell
us how deep it is."

This had the effect of sending Libbie scurrying away from the
dangerous place, and the others followed her more slowly to resume the
search for nuts.

"I wish we could think of a way, Norma, dear," said Betty.

"Oh, I don't care--not so very much," answered Norma bravely. But then
she sighed deeply.

CHAPTER XVII

CAUGHT IN THE STORM

The Shadyside gymnasium was equipped with a fine pool, and it was the
school's boast that every girl