eather made walking
difficult, and there were several boggy places which she was obliged to
skirt. This took her farther than she had intended. Looking round she
could not see her landmark, the tower.

"It must be over there to the right," she said to herself. "Hallo, what
a gorgeous silver fritillary! I'll get it if I possibly can."

Lorraine was rather keen on entomology, and though she had no net with
her, she pulled off her hat and ran in eager pursuit of the butterfly.
It was an exciting chase, several times she nearly secured it, but it
managed to elude her and flitted tantalizingly away. At last it paused
and hovered, then settled on a spray of wild rose. Lorraine crept up
stealthily, hat in hand. Surely she had her prize now? But just at the
critical moment, again the lovely wings fluttered; she made a grab and a
dash forward simultaneously, then suddenly the earth seemed to open and
swallow her up.

As a matter of fact, she fell about nine feet, and lodged on a heap of
shale. It was so totally unexpected, and so amazing, that she lay there
for a moment or two almost stunned. Then she moved cautiously and sat
up. She realized what had happened. In her mad rush after the butterfly
she had not noticed where she was going, and she had fallen down the
shaft of an old tin-mine. Above her were its rocky sides, with bushes
and a patch of blue sky at the top. Below the ledge where she sat it
sloped away towards a black hole. Lorraine, still a little dazed,
shuddered as she looked down in the direction of that dark pit. She was
unhurt, and she was safe enough on the edge of the shale, but how was
she to get up to the level of the ground above? The sides of the shaft
were far too steep to climb, and a slip might mean a plunge down, down,
down into that horrible depth that loomed below.

She stood up cautiously and shouted with all the force of her lungs.
There was no reply. Again and again she called, but beyond the
alarm-note of a blackbird there was no response. She began to grow
seriously frightened. She must be some distance from the tower, and she
had wandered from the rest of the party. Suppose nobody heard her
calling? The bare idea sent her breath in gasps. In time, no doubt, they
would notice her absence, but they would not exactly know where to
search for her. They might even imagine that she had gone home. Suppose
the night came on before she was found? Suppose even days were to pass
and nobody remembered t