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126 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