one
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."

In truth, a set of points for hand and foot partly natural, partly cut
there, rude but safe enough for boy climbers like ourselves, led down to
my tree lodge.

"And what's below you?" shouted Tell.

"Another tree like this. I don't know how far down if you jump right," I
answered back.

"Well, jump right, for I'm nekth. Ever thee a tow-headed flying
thquirrel?" And Bud was shinning down over the edge clawing tightly the
stone points of vantage.

Many a time in these sixty years have I seen a difficult and dreaded way
grow suddenly easy when the time came to travel it. When we were only
boys idling away the long summer afternoons the cliff was always
impossible. We had rarely tried the downward route, and from below with
the river, always dangerously deep and swift, at the base, our exploring
had brought failure. That hand-hold of leather thongs, braided into a
rope and fastened securely under the ledge out of si