They were indistinct, for the wind had disturbed the
snow; but they were indeed footprints, and we followed them. They
led us to the brink of the cliff, to the very spot where Thora and
I had, many weeks before, gone over to descend to the cave.
"Somebody has gone over here, Hal," said Jessie. "Look down on that
jag of rock, there is the mark of a rope!"
And at once I remembered about the disappearance of my climbing
lines. I looked to where Jessie pointed, and sure enough there were
the marks of a rope, where it had disturbed the snow and grazed
against the frosted stone. There was no rope hanging there, but I
well knew that it could have been removed from below by means of a
few dexterous jerks and twitches.
I reasoned with myself upon what I saw, and I considered that the
person who had gone down the cliff could be none other than Thora,
for I believed that none but she knew of that way down to the cave.
Only she and Tom Kinlay knew that I kept my climbing ropes in the
byre; but Tom had, as Ann told me, gone out in the St. Magnus. Only
Thora could have taken them, then.
What her possible reason for going down to the cave might be, I did
not pause to reflect, further than surmising the probability of her
having had some quarrel with her father, and of her having run away
from Crua Breck as she had once threatened to do.
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