BOOKS BY
Walter P. Eaton

THE BOY SCOUTS OF BERKSHIRE. A story of how the Chipmunk Patrol was started, what they did and how they did it.

BOY SCOUTS IN THE DISMAL SWAMP. A story of Boy Scouting in the Dismal Swamp.

BOY SCOUTS IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. A story of a hike over the Franconia and Presidential Ranges.

BOY SCOUTS OF THE WILDCAT PATROL. A story of Boy Scouting.

PEANUT—CUB REPORTER. A Boy Scout’s life and adventures on a newspaper.

BOY SCOUTS IN GLACIER PARK. The adventures of two young Easterners in the heart of the High Rockies.

BOY SCOUTS AT CRATER LAKE. A Story of the High Cascades.

BOY SCOUTS ON KATAHDIN. A story of the Maine Woods.

HAWKEYE’S ROOMMATE. A story of the very life of a truly American prep school—how the boys studied, played and found lasting friendships and learned the lessons of life.

Boy Scouts in the White Mountains
THE STORY OF A LONG HIKE

By
WALTER PRICHARD EATON
ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK T. MERRILL

Docendo discimus

W. A. WILDE COMPANY
BOSTON CHICAGO

Copyrighted, 1914
By W. A. Wilde Company
All rights reserved

Boy Scouts in the White Mountains

NOTE

The author and publishers desire to express their appreciation of the courtesy extended by Small Maynard & Co. for the use of the black and white plates used in this volume, which are taken from their “White Mountain Trails” and also to “The Northward-Ho” for the use of the reproduction of the Presidential Range used on the cover.

To
Sydney Bruce Snow

In memory of a cheerful fire
and a doleful broken egg
beside the
Lakes of the Clouds

Contents

Boy Scouts in the White Mountains

CHAPTER I

Peanut Calls to Arms

Nobody who had seen Art Bruce in a scout suit would ever have recognized him in his present costume. He had on black silk knee-breeches. On his low shoes were sewed two enormous buckles, cut out of pasteboard, with tinfoil from a paper of sweet chocolate pasted over them to make them look like silver. Instead of a shirt, he wore a woman’s white waist, with a lot of lace in front, which stood out, stiff with starch. His jacket was of black velvet. Instead of a collar, he wore a black handkerchief wrapped around like an old-fashioned neck-cloth, the kind you see in pictures of George Washington’s time. On his head was a wig, powered white, with a queue hanging down behind. As he came out of the boys’ dressing room into the school auditorium Peanut Morrison emitted a wild whoop.

“Gee, look at Art!” he cried. “He thinks he’s George Washington going to deliver his last message to Congress!”

Everybody looked at Art, and Art turned red. “Shut up,” he said. “You wait till you’re all dolled up, and see what you look like!”

“Yes, and you’d better be getting dressed right away,” said one of the teachers to Peanut, who scampered off laughing.

Art stood about, very uncomfortable, watching the other boys and girls come from the dressing rooms, in their costumes. It was the dress rehearsal for a Colonial pageant the Southmead High School was going to present. They were going to sing a lot of old-time songs, and dance old-time dances (the girls doing most of the dancing). The stage was supposed to represent a Colonial parlor. Several people had loaned the school old mahogany furniture, the light was to come largely from candles, and finally, while the party was supposed to be in full blast, a messenger was going to dash in, breathless, announce the Battle of Lexington, and call the men-folks of Southmead to arms. Then the men would run for their guns, say good-bye to the women, and march off. Art couldn’t see why they should march off in all their best clothes, and had said so to the teacher who got up the play, but she had pointed out that they couldn’t afford to hire two costumes for all the boys, so they’d just have to pretend they went home for their other clothes. Art was not yet satisfied, however.

The girls were in funny old costumes with wide skirts and powdered hair. They were all having a much better time than Art was.

“Gee, they like to dress up,” thought Art, as he watched Lucy Parker practicing a courtesy before her own reflection in a glass door, and patting her hair.

Peanut didn’t have to dress up in these elaborate clothes. He was the messenger who rushed in to announce the call to arms. He was also his own horse. Putting a board across two chairs just behind the door leading to the stage, he took a couple of drumsticks and imitated a galloping horse, beginning softly, as if the horse was far away, and drumming louder and louder till the horse was supposed to reach the door. Then he cried “Whoa!”, dropped the drumsticks, and dashed out upon the stage. Peanut had been rehearsing his part at home, and the imitation of the galloping horse was really very good.

As soon as everybody was dressed, the rehearsal began, with the music teacher at the piano, and the other teachers running about getting the actors into place. Lucy Parker was supposed to be giving the party in her house, and the other characters came on one by one, or in couples, while Lucy courtesied to each of them. The girls courtesied back, while the men were supposed to make low bows. There weren’t many lines to speak, but Dennie O’Brien was supposed to be a visiting French count, with very gallant manners, and he had to say “Bon soir, Mademoiselle Parker” (Lucy’s ancestors had lived in Southmead during the Revolution, so she kept her own name in the play), and then he had to lift her hand and kiss it. Dennie had never been able to do this at any of the rehearsals yet without giggling, and setting everybody else to giggling. But this time the teacher in charge spoke severely.

“Now, Dennis,” she said, “this is a dress rehearsal. You go through your part right!”

“Yes’m,” Dennie answered, feeling of the little black goatee stuck on his chin to see if it was on firm, and trying to keep his face straight.

When his turn came to enter, he got off his “Bon soir, Mademoiselle Parker” all right, and bowed over her hand without a snicker. But, just as he kissed her fingers, his goatee came off and fell to the floor. Everybody laughed, except Lucy. She was mad at him, because she wanted the play to be a great success, and before he could lift his face, she brought her hand up quickly and slapped his cheek a good, sounding whack.

Dennie jumped back, surprised. Then he picked up his goatee, while Lucy stamped her foot. “You great clumsy—boy!” she exclaimed.

“Serves you right, Dennis,” said the teacher.

“Well, I can’t help it if it won’t stick,” Dennie answered. “Gee, I’ll bite your old hand next time!” he muttered to Lucy.

She ignored him, and the rehearsal proceeded. Art entered next, with Mary Pearson on his arm. Mary dropped a courtesy, and Art bowed.

The teacher clapped her hands for the rehearsal to stop. “Oh, Arthur,” she said, “don’t bow as if you had a ramrod down your back!”

“Well, I feel’s if I had,” said Art.

“But don’t act so!” the teacher laughed. “Now, try it again.”

Art tried once more to put his hand on his breast, and bow gracefully, but he certainly felt like a fool in these clothes, and made a poor success of it.

“Boys are all clumsy,” he heard Lucy whisper to one of the other girls.

After the guests had all arrived, they sang several old-time songs, and then four boys and four girls danced the minuet. Art didn’t have to take part in this. He was supposed to sit and chat in the background, which was easy. After the minuet, however, everybody had to get up and dance a Virginia Reel. While they were in the middle of the dance, Peanut’s galloping horse was heard; the dance stopped, the cry of “Whoa!” was shouted at the door, and Peanut, in clothes made dusty by sprinkling flour on them, dashed into the room, breathless, and panted, “War has begun! We have fought the British at Lexington and Concord! Every man to arms! The enemy must be driven out of Boston!”

There was nothing stiff about Peanut, and nobody laughed when he came on covered with flour. He was really panting. He gasped out his first sentence, and ended with a thrilling shout. Then he dashed forth again, and his horse was heard galloping rapidly away.

“Peanut has the artistic temperament,” one of the teachers whispered to another, who nodded.

No sooner had Peanut gone than the men on the stage piled after him, and while the women huddled whispering in excited groups, they grabbed guns and came back on the stage, when there were good-byes and pretended tears, and Lou Merritt, dressed up like a Revolutionary minister, gave the departing soldiers his blessing.

“Just the same, it’s silly,” Art cried, as the rehearsal was over. “Nobody ever marched off to war in silk pants and pumps. Why can’t we put on our own old clothes, with high boots, when we go for the guns? Even if we don’t have Continental uniforms, the old clothes will look more sensible than these things.”

“Sure!” cried Peanut, to the teacher. “Look here, Miss Eldridge, here’s a picture of the Concord statue of the Minute Man. Just long pants stuck into his boots. Let ’em just do that, and sling blanket rolls over their shoulders, like Scouts. Then they’ll look like business.”

“I guess you are right, boys,” she said. “Well, try it again. Who lives nearest? You, Joe, and you, Bert. Run and borrow a few old blankets from your mothers.”

Ten minutes later Peanut once more galloped up to interrupt the Virginia Reel, the men rushed out for their guns, and pulled on their own trousers, slung blanket rolls over their shoulders, discarded their powdered wigs, and came back looking much more like minute men going to war. They formed a strong contrast now to the girls, in their fine clothes. Art felt easy at last, with a blanket roll covering his frilled shirt and a gun in his hand. He gave commands to his company in a firm voice, no longer halting and awkward. He even had a sudden inspiration, which undoubtedly improved the play, though that wasn’t why he carried it out.

Lucy Parker, she who had been so contemptuous of boys, was acting for all she was worth in this scene. Prattie was supposed to be her lover, and she was clinging to him with one hand while bidding him good-bye, and mopping her eyes with the other. Art, as captain of the minute men, suddenly strode over to her, grabbed Prattie, dragged him away, and put him into line with the other soldiers. Lucy looked indignant, and forgot to wipe her eyes. Art glanced at her triumphantly, and Miss Eldridge cried, “Do that on the night of the play, Arthur! That’s fine—only don’t glare at Lucy.”

This inspiration rather restored Art’s spirits. He had got square with Lucy Parker, anyhow! He and Peanut dressed as quickly as they could, and left the school building, walking home up the village street, where sleigh-bells were jingling. Art grew glum again.

“Hang the old rehearsals!” said he. “It’s too late to go skating.”

“I like ’em,” Peanut replied. “It’s lots o’ fun.”

“You’re an actor, I guess,” said Art. “Gee, you come puffing in just as if you were really out of breath!”

“I am,” said Peanut. “I get to thinking about galloping up on the horse so hard while I’m drumming that I really get excited. Why, how can you help it?”

“Guess you can’t,” Art answered. “But I can. I’m not built that way. Play acting doesn’t seem real to me, it seems sort of—sort of girls’ stuff.”

“Thank you,” said Peanut.

“Oh, I don’t mean you, of course,” Art laughed. “But dancing, and all that—golly, I feel as if I was wasting time. Wish vacation was here, so we could get away somewhere into the wilds again.”

“Sure, so do I,” answered Peanut, “but me for having all the fun I can while I’m in civilization. Where are we going to hike this summer, by the way?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Art. “I was thinking about it in study period—that’s why I flunked my history recitation. Got a good idea, too.”

“Out with it,” said Peanut.

“The White Mountains,” said Art. “It came to me while I was looking at that picture of the Alps which hangs on the side wall. These mountains about Southmead, they’re not really mountains—only hills. But we’ve had a lot of fun climbing ’em. Think what fun it would be to climb real mountains. We can’t get to the Alps or the Rockies, but Mr. Rogers told me once it wouldn’t cost any more to hike over the White Mountains than it cost us to go to the Dismal Swamp.”

“Me for them,” cried Peanut. “That means saving twenty-five dollars between now and July. Wow! I’ll have to do some hustling!”

“You’ll have to cut out some candy,” laughed Art.

“I’ve not bought any candy since—since yesterday,” the other replied. “Whom’ll we take with us on this hike?”

“Anybody that will go,” said Art. “Guess I’d better call a scout meeting right away, and put it up to the fellers.”

“Sure, to-night,” cried Peanut. “I’m going home now to see if the old hen’s laid an egg to sell!”

“You’ll need a lot of eggs to save twenty-five dollars,” said Art.

“Not so many, with eggs at fifty-five cents a dozen,” Peanut replied. Then he turned in at his gate, and began to skip sideways up the path, hitting the soles of his shoes together in such a way that he exactly imitated the galloping of a horse. “Whoa!” he cried at the door, and as he entered the house, Art could hear him shouting at his mother, “To arms! The war has begun. We have fought the British at Lexington and Concord!”

Then Art grinned as he heard Mrs. Morrison reply, “Have you? Well, now you split some kindlings.”

CHAPTER II

Getting Ready for the Hike

For the next few months several of the Scouts saved up money for the White Mountain hike. Art, as patrol leader, and as originator of the idea, felt that it was up to him to do all in his power to encourage the plan, so he borrowed Rob Everts’ radiopticon (Rob himself was away at college now), and secured from Mr. Rogers, the Scout Master, who had been to the White Mountains many times, a bunch of picture post-cards and photographs, showing all kinds of views from that region—the Old Man of the Mountain, the clouds seen from the top of Mount Washington, the Great Gulf between Washington and the northern peaks, the snow arch in Tuckerman’s Ravine, and so on. Mr. Rogers himself came to the meeting and explained the pictures, describing the places enthusiastically. Some of his own photographs were taken at very steep places on the trails, and here some of the boys gasped. One picture in particular showed Mr. Rogers himself climbing a ledge, almost as steep as the side of a house, with a pack on his back and a blanket roll over his shoulder.

“Gee, do you have to carry all that weight up those places?” demanded Prattie.

“You do if you want to eat and keep warm when you get to the top,” Mr. Rogers laughed.

“Me for little old Southmead,” Prattie replied.

“Yes, you stay right here, and dance the minuet with Lucy Parker,” said Art scornfully. “You big, lazy tub!”

Prattie bristled up, but the other Scouts laughed him down. However, there were several more who seemed, as time went on, to feel rather as Prattie did toward the White Mountain hike. Some of them got discouraged at the task of saving up so much money. Besides, it was easier, when spring came, to go out and play baseball than it was to work for a few pennies, which had to be put in a bank and saved for summer—a long way off. Others didn’t see the trip in the light Art and Peanut saw it. It seemed too hard work to them.

“They make me tired,” Art declared one spring afternoon. “They haven’t any gumption.”

“Boys are something like men, I guess,” Peanut answered sagely. “Some men get out and do things, an’ get rich or go to Congress, while others don’t. Look right here in Southmead. There’s Tom Perkins, he’s got everything you want in his store, from sponges to snow-shoes, and he’s rich. Bill Green, who might do just as well as he does, don’t care whether he sells you anything or not; he’s too lazy to stock up with fresh goods all the while, and he’s poor and don’t amount to much. I guess when Tom Perkins was our age he’d have gone to the White Mountains with us, and Bill Green wouldn’t.”

“Probably,” said Art, “but there are too many Bill Greens in the world!”

“Right-o,” said Peanut. “I’ll tell you something else, Art. Some of the fellers’ folks won’t let ’em go. I was talking with Dennie’s old man the other day. Gee, he’s got money enough! He could give Dennie twenty-five dollars and never know it. He said, ‘What’s the matter with you boys? Ain’t Southmead good enough for you, that you want to go hikin’ off a thousand miles?’ He got my goat, and I just came back at him!”

“What did you say?” asked Art.

Peanut chuckled. “I wasn’t exactly polite,” he answered. “‘Mr. O’Brien,’ said I, ‘if you’d been off more, you’d know that one of the best ways to get an education is to travel. Southmead’s only a little corner of a big world.’ ‘Well, it’s big enough for me, and for Dennis,’ he says, and I answered, ‘It’s too big for you. You’re so small you’d rattle ’round in a pea-pod.’”

“And then what happened?” asked Art.

“Then I ran,” Peanut laughed. “Gee, he was mad! Old tightwad! Dennie wants to go, awful bad.”

As vacation time drew near in June, the number of Scouts who were going to be able to make the trip had boiled down to four—Art and Peanut, of course, with Frank Nichols and Lou Merritt. Those readers who have also read “The Boy Scouts of Berkshire” will recall that Lou Merritt was the boy who had started in as a sneak and a liar. But that time was long since past. He had lived with Miss Swain now for several years; he took care of her garden for her, and made some money for himself besides, raising lettuce, radishes, cauliflowers and other vegetables. He was in the high school, and was going from there to the Amherst Agricultural College. Lou was now one of the most respected boys in town, and Miss Swain was so fond of him that she had practically ordered him to go on the hike, for he had worked hard in the garden all the spring, besides studying evenings. She was going to hire a gardener while he was away, but the money for the trip he had earned himself. In addition to these four there was, of course, Mr. Rogers, the Scout Master, and Rob Everts, who would be back from college in a week or two now, and was going on the hike for a vacation, before he started in summer work in his father’s bank. That made a party of six, which Mr. Rogers declared was, after all, enough.

The Appalachian Mountain Club camp in Tuckerman’s Ravine

“Just a good, chummy number,” he said. “The Appalachian camps will hold us without overcrowding, and we won’t always be worrying about stragglers getting lost.”

“What are the Appalachian camps?” asked Art.

“The Appalachian Club is a club of men, with headquarters in Boston,” Mr. Rogers answered, “and they do more than anybody else to make hiking in the White Mountains possible. They have built dozens and dozens of trails, which they keep cleaned out and marked clearly, and at several strategic points they have built shelters where you can camp over night or get in out of the storm. They have a stone hut on the col between Mounts Madison and Adams, a shelter in the Great Gulf, another in Tuckerman’s Ravine, and so on. I’ve been mighty glad to get to some of these shelters, I can tell you.”

“Gee, those names—Great Gulf—Tuckerman’s Ravine—make you want to get to ’em in a hurry!” cried Peanut. “Let’s plan an equipment right off.”

“That is pretty important,” said Mr. Rogers. “We want to go as light as we can, and yet we’ve got to keep warm. I’ve been in a snow-storm on Mount Washington in the middle of August.”

“Whew!” said Peanut.

So the four Scouts began planning, at their shoes, where plans for every hike ought to begin. As Mr. Rogers put it, “a soldier is no better than his feet.” Each boy got out his stoutest boots, made sure that the linings were sound so there would be no rough places to chafe the feet, and took them to the cobbler’s. If the soles had worn thin, the cobbler resoled them, and in all of them he put hobnails, so they would grip the steep rocks without slipping.

None of the Southmead Scouts wore the kind of scout uniform which has short knee pants and socks instead of stockings. As most of their hikes were through woods, this uniform would have been highly unpractical, resulting in scratched legs. Besides, all the larger Scouts, like Art and Peanut, said it was too much like the clothes rich little children wear! Instead, the Southmead troop generally wore khaki trousers and leggings.

“I think leggings are going to be too hot for this trip,” Mr. Rogers said. “We’ll have very little brush work to do. Suppose we cut out the leggings in favor of long khaki trousers. We’ll each want an extra pair of heavy socks, and you, Lou, bring along a needle and plenty of darning cotton, to repair holes. Then we’ll want an extra shirt and set of underclothes apiece, so we can change in camp after a sweaty climb. Also, we’ll all want sweaters and a blanket.”

“How about food?” asked Art.

“And cooking kits?” asked Peanut.

“And my camera?” said Frank.

“One camera only!” laughed Mr. Rogers. “You can settle whose that’ll be between you. Most of our food we’ll get as we go along. But it would be just as well if we got a few things before we start, such as salt and a few soup sticks and some dehydrated vegetables, such as spinach, and maybe some army emergency rations.”

“Brr,” said Peanut. “Art and I tried them once. Taste like—well, I’m too polite to tell you.”

“Nevertheless, you can put a small can in your pocket and go off for a day without toting a whole kitchen along,” Mr. Rogers answered, “and that’s a help when you are climbing.”

“All right,” said Peanut, “but I’d rather chew raisins.”

“He’ll eat it just the same, when he gets hungry,” put in Art. “Now, about kits. Can’t we divide up? We oughtn’t to need much stuff for only six.”

“I’ve got two kettles, that nest, one inside the other,” said Peanut, “and a small frying-pan.”

“I’ve got a good sized fry pan,” said Frank.

“And I’ve got a wire broiler, that shuts up and fits into my pocket,” said Mr. Rogers.

“And I’ve got a collapsible camp lantern, that you can see to shut it up by,” said Lou.

“Then we’ll do with just those things,” Art said. “Of course, everybody’ll bring his own cup and knife and spoon. Oh, and how about maps and compasses, Mr. Rogers? Will we need compasses?”

“You bet, we’ll all take compasses. Everybody’s got to have a compass in his pocket before we start.”

“Why?” asked Frank. “Can’t you always see where you are going on a mountain? Those pictures of Washington you showed us looked as if the mountain was all bare rock.”

“That’s just why we need the compasses,” Mr. Rogers answered. “You can follow a path through woods, no matter how thick a cloud you may be in, but when you get up on the bare ledges of the Presidentials, the path is marked only by little piles of stones, called cairns, every fifty feet or so, and when a cloud comes up you can’t see, often, from one to the next, and if you once get away from the path and started in a wrong direction, you are lost. Many people have been lost on Mount Washington just that way, and either starved or frozen to death. If you have a compass, you can steer a compass line down the mountain till you come to water, and follow the brook out toward the north where there are houses at the base. But if you haven’t a compass, and get to going south, you get into a wilderness, and it would go hard with you. Mount Washington is really a dangerous mountain, even if it is only 6,293 feet high. The storms come quickly and often without warning, and it can get very cold up there, as I told you, even in midsummer. Yes, sir, we’ll all take compasses, and before we tackle the old boy we’ll have some lectures, too, on how to act in case of cloud!”

“Don’t we want maps, too?” said Art. “Gee, it sounds more exciting every minute!”

“I have the maps,” Mr. Rogers said. “Here are the government maps of the Presidentials, and here is the little Appalachian Club book, with maps and trails.”

He brought out a small book in a green leather cover like a pocketbook, and opened it, unfolding two maps of the Presidential range, like big blueprints.

The boys leaned their heads together over it, and began to spell out the trails.

“Gulf Side Trail,” cried Art. “That sounds good.”

“Here’s the Crawford Bridle Path—that’s a long one—shall we go up that?” asked Lou.

Mr. Rogers nodded. “That’s the way we’ll get up Washington,” he said.

“Hi, I like this one!” Peanut exclaimed. “Six Husbands’ Trail! She goes down—or he does, seeing it’s husbands—into the Great Gulf, and then up again—let’s see—up Jefferson. Wow, by the contour intervals it looks like a steep one!”

“It is a steep one—wait till you see it,” said Mr. Rogers.

Art had now turned back from the map into the reading matter.

“Listen to this!” he exclaimed. “Here’s a description of the Tuckerman Ravine path up Mount Washington. It’s three and six-tenth miles, and the time given for it is four hours and fifteen minutes. That’s less than a mile an hour. Gee, I call that pretty slow!”

“Do you?” laughed the Scout Master. “Well, if we average a mile an hour on the steep trails, I’ll be satisfied. You wait till you hit the head wall with a pack on your back, and a blanket on your shoulder, and see how many miles an hour you want to travel!”

“Keeps sounding better and better!” cried Peanut. “Golly, I can’t wait! When do we start?”

It was agreed, as soon as Rob got home from college, to start the day before the Fourth of July, and celebrate the Fourth in the mountains. Rob suspected that Mr. Rogers suggested this date partially in order to keep Peanut from getting into trouble “the night before,” as Peanut was always a leader in the attempts to ring the Congregational church bell, and this year the sheriff had declared he’d arrest any boy he caught near the steeple. But Peanut was too excited over the mountain hike to worry much at losing the night before fun. On the afternoon of the second, all five Scouts had their equipments ready, and brought them to Mr. Rogers’ house, which was nearest to the station. The next morning they were on hand half an hour before train time, and marched to the station with a flag flying, for Peanut declared, as he unfurled it, that he was going to plant Old Glory on the top of something on the Fourth of July.

Two hours later they changed cars for the White Mountain express, at Springfield, and soon were rolling up the Connecticut valley, through country which was strange to them.

CHAPTER III

Fourth of July on Kinsman

As the train passed along the high embankment above the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts, the boys crowded to the windows on the left side of the car, and gazed out upon the meadows where they had camped at the turning point of their first long hike, several years before. The village looked sleepy and quiet, under its great trees.

“Golly, they need waking up again!” Peanut laughed. “Remember how we trimmed ’em in baseball? There’s the field we played on, too.”

But almost before the rest could follow Peanut’s beckoning finger, the train was past. Deerfield was the last familiar spot they saw. Their way led northward, mile after mile, beside the Connecticut River, and they began to get a pretty good idea of what a lengthy thing a big river is.

“Take a good look at that river, boys,” said Mr. Rogers, “because in a few days we are going to eat our lunch at one of its head waters, and you can see what little beginnings big things have.”

In the afternoon, they came in sight of Mount Ascutney, close to the river in Windsor, Vermont.

“That’s only the height of Greylock, which we’ve climbed,” Mr. Rogers told them. “But you’ll begin to see some of the big fellows pretty soon.”

Sure enough, it was not long before Art, who was looking out of the eastern window, gave a cry. “There’s a big blue lump, with what looks like a house on top!”

Mr. Rogers looked. “You’re right, it’s a big lump, all right! That’s the second one we’ll climb. It’s Moosilauke.” He peered sharply out of the window. “There,” he added, “do you see a saddleback mountain beyond it, which looks like Greylock? That’s Kinsman. We’ll celebrate the Fourth to-morrow, on top of him.”

“Hooray!” cried Peanut. “I got two packs of firecrackers in my kettle!”

“How high is it?” asked Frank.

“About 4,200 feet,” Mr. Rogers answered. “That’s only 700 feet higher than Greylock, but I can promise you it will seem more, and there’ll be a different view.”

Peanut was running from one side of the car to the other, trying to see everything. But the nearer they got to the mountains, the less of the mountains they saw. After the train turned up the narrow valley of the Ammonoosuc, at Woodsville, in fact, they saw no more mountains at all. An hour later they got off the train at the Sugar Hill station. So did a great many other people. There were many motors and mountain wagons waiting to carry off the new arrivals. The boys, at Art’s suggestion, let these get out of the way before they started, so the dust would have a chance to settle. It was late in the afternoon when they finally set out.

“How far have we got to go?” asked Frank.

“Seven or eight miles,” Mr. Rogers answered, “if we want to camp at the base of Kinsman. If you’d rather walk it in the morning, we can camp along this road.”

“No, let’s get there to-night! Don’t care if I starve, I’m going to keep on till I see the mountains,” cried Peanut.

The rest were equally eager, so up the road they plodded, a road which mounted steadily through second growth timber, mile after mile, with scarce a house on it. After an hour or more, they came in sight of Sugar Hill village, one street of houses straggling up a hill ahead. They increased their pace, and soon Peanut, who was leading, gave a cry which startled several people walking on the sidewalk. The rest hurried up. Peanut had come to the top of the road, and was looking off eastward excitedly. There were the mountains! Near at hand, hardly a stone’s throw, it seemed, across the valley below, lay a long, forest-clad bulwark, rising into domes. Beyond that shot up a larger rampart, sharply peaked, of naked rock. Off to the left, beyond that, growing bluer and bluer into the distance, was a billowing sea of mountains, and very far off, to the northwest, almost like a mist on the horizon, lay the biggest pyramid of all, which Mr. Rogers told them was Mount Washington.

“Some mountains, those!” Peanut exclaimed. “Gee, I guess we won’t climb ’em all in two weeks!”

“I guess not,” Rob laughed.

They turned to the right now, passing a big hotel on the very crest of the hill, and as they passed, the setting sun behind them turned all the mountains a bright amethyst, so that they looked, as Lou put it, “like great big jewels.”

“It’s beautiful!” he added, enthusiastically.

“Make a poem about it,” said Peanut. “Say, Mr. Rogers, Lou writes poetry. You oughter read it! He wrote a poem to Lucy Parker one day, didn’t you, Lou?”

“Shut up,” said Lou, turning red.

“Well, if I could write poetry, this view would make me do it, all right,” Rob put in. “Now where to, Mr. Rogers?”

“Getting hungry?” said the Scout Master.

“I sure am.”

“Well, in an hour we’ll be at camp. All down-hill, too.”

“Hooray!” cried Art. “This pack is getting heavy.”

The party now turned sharply down the hill toward the east, and the great double range of the Franconia Mountains, which Mr. Rogers named for them. The highest peak on the north of the farther range was Lafayette, 5,200 feet high. The northern peak of the first range was Cannon Mountain, the Old Man’s face being on the farther side of it. To the south the twin summits, like a saddleback, were the two peaks of Kinsman, which they would climb in the morning. As they dropped rapidly down the hill, they suddenly saw to the south, in the fading light, a huge bulk of a mountain filling up the vista. “That’s Moosilauke,” Mr. Rogers said. “We tackle him day after to-morrow.”

It was almost dark when they reached the valley, and turned south along a sandy road with the big black wall of Cannon seeming to tower over them. It grew quite dark while they were still tramping.

“Hope you know your way, Mr. Scout Master,” said Peanut, who had ceased to run on ahead.

“Half a mile more,” Mr. Rogers laughed.

Presently they heard a brook, and a moment later stood on a bridge. The brook was evidently coming down from that great black bulk of Cannon to the left, which lifted its dome up to the stars.

“Halt!” Mr. Rogers cried. “Here’s Copper Mine Brook.”

He led the way through the fence side of the brook, and two minutes later the party stood in a pine grove, carpeted with soft needles.

“Camp!” said the Scout Master. “Art, you and the rest get a fire going. Take Lou’s lantern and find some stones. There are plenty right in the bed of the brook—nothing but. Peanut, come with me.”

The Scout Master led Peanut out of the grove to the south, and up over a pasture knoll a few hundred feet. At the top of the knoll they saw a white house below them, a big barn, and a cottage. Descending quickly, Mr. Rogers led Peanut through the wood-shed, as if it were his own house, and knocked at the kitchen door.

As the Scout Master and Peanut entered, a man and a little boy arose, the man’s face expressing first astonishment and then joyous welcome.

“Well, of all things!” he cried. “Did you drop out of the sky?”

“Mr. Sheldon, this is Bobbie Morrison, otherwise known as Peanut,” said Mr. Rogers. “And how is your Bobbie?”

The little fellow came forward from behind his father’s leg, and shook hands. But what interested him most was Peanut’s sheath hatchet. In two minutes he had it out, and was trying to demolish the wood-box with it—not trying, succeeding! His father had to take it away.

The Sheldon family all came to welcome Mr. Rogers, and when he and Peanut returned to camp they carried milk and eggs and doughnuts.

“That farm,” Mr. Rogers said, “is about the best place I know of to come to stay, if you want to tramp around for a week or a month.”

“They kind of like you, I guess,” said Peanut.

“That’s the kind of folks they are,” answered the Scout Master.

Back at camp, the Scouts had a fire going briskly, and soon supper was sizzling, and the smell of coffee, made from the pure water of Copper Mine Brook, was mingling with the fragrance of the pines, and with another smell the boys at first did not recognize till Art examined a small tree close to the fire, and discovered that it was balsam. They were in the midst of their feast, when Mr. Sheldon appeared, and sat down with them.

“You oughtn’t to take ’em away from here without showing ’em the falls,” he said to the Scout Master. “They are full now—lots of water coming over—and I cut out the trail fresh this last winter. You can do it in the morning and still make Kinsman, easily. At least, you can if they are strong boys,” he added with a wink.

“Humph!” said Peanut, “I guess we’re as strong as the next.”

Then he realized that Mr. Sheldon had got a rise out of him, and grinned.

“What’s the weather going to be to-morrow?” asked the Scout Master.

“Clear,” the other man replied. “I didn’t hear the mountain talking as I came across the knoll.”

“The mountain what?” said Rob.

“Talking, we say. You get it real still down here sometimes in the valley, and way up on top there, if you listen sharp, you can hear the wind rushing through the trees. Then we look out for bad weather.”

“That’s a funny way to put it,” Lou mused. “It makes the mountains seem sort of human.”

“Well, you get to know ’em pretty well, living under ’em all the time, that’s a fact,” the man answered. “A good sleep to you.”

“Good-night,” called the Scouts, as he disappeared.

As soon as the supper things were washed, they were ready for bed, curling up in their blankets around the fire, for it was chilly here, even though it was the night before the Fourth—a fact Peanut quite forgot till he had rolled himself all up for the night. He crawled out again, set off a couple of firecrackers, and came back to bed.

“Gee, this is the stillest night before I ever saw!” he exclaimed.

“It would be, if you’d shut up,” grunted Art, sleepily.

The next morning Art, as always, was the first up. He rose from his blanket, aware that it was dawn, and rubbed his eyes. Where was the dim black wall of the mountain which had gone up against the stars the night before? He ran out of the grove into a clear space and gazed up Copper Mine Brook into a white wall of cloud. Back the other way, he saw that the narrow valley in which they were was hung along the surface with white mist, as the water of the Lake of the Dismal Swamp used to be; and the western hills beyond it were in cloud. Yet overhead the dawn sky appeared to be blue.

“Guess we’re in for a bad day,” he muttered, peeling off his clothes and tumbling into the shallow, swift waters of the brook. He emitted a loud “Wow!” as he fell into the deepest pool he could find. Was this ice water? He got out again as quickly as possible, and began hopping up and down to dry himself, his body pink with the reaction.

His “Wow!” had wakened the camp, and the rest were soon beside him.

“How’s the water?” asked Peanut.

“Fine!” said Art, winking at Mr. Rogers.

Peanut, without a word, rolled over the bank. His “Wow!” sounded like a wildcat in distress.

“Cold?” asked Rob.

“Oh, n-n-no,” said Peanut emerging with chattering teeth. “W-w-warm as t-t-t-toast.”

The rest decided to cut out the morning bath, in spite of Art’s jeers. Even Mr. Rogers balked at ice water. They were all looking, with much disappointment, at the cloud-covered mountain above them.

“Wait a bit,” said the Scout Master. “This is going to be a fine day—you’ll see.”

Even as they were going back to camp for breakfast, the hills to the west, touched now with the sun, began to emerge from the mist, or rather the mist seemed to roll up their sides like the curtain at a play. By the time breakfast was over, the sun had appeared over Cannon, and the clouds had mysteriously vanished into a few thin shreds of vapor, like veils far up in the tree tops. It was a splendid day.

“Well, I’ll be switched!” said Art.

“The mountains almost always gather clouds, like a dew, at night in summer,” the Scout Master said. “Well, boys, do you feel up to tackling Bridal Veil Falls before we tackle Kinsman?”

There came a “Yes!” in unison. All packs and equipment were left in camp, and shortly after six the party set out in light marching trim up a logging road which followed the brook bed. It led over a high pasture, and finally plunged into a thick second growth forest, where the dew on the branches soaked everybody, but particularly Peanut, who was leading and got the first of it. The path crossed the brook several times on old corduroy log bridges, now nearly rotted away, and grew constantly steeper. The boys were panting a bit. They hadn’t got their mountain wind yet. After two miles, during which, but for the steepness, they might have been leagues from any mountain for all they could see, they began to hear a roaring in the woods above them. They hastened on, and suddenly, right ahead, they saw a smooth, inclined plane of rock, thirty or forty feet long, with the water slipping down over it like running glass, and above it they saw a sheer precipice sixty feet high, with a V-shaped cut in the centre. Through the bottom of this V the brook came pouring, and tumbled headlong to the ledge below.

“Up we go!” cried Peanut, tackling the smooth sloping ledge at a dry strip on the side. He got a few feet, and began to slip back.

The rest laughed, and tackled the slide at various spots. Only the Scout Master, with a grin, went way to the right and climbed easily up by a hidden path on the side ledge. He got to the base of the falls before the boys did.

“A picture, a picture!” cried Frank, as the rest finally arrived. All the party but Frank scrambled up on a slippery boulder, drenched with spray, beside the falls, and Frank mounted his tripod and took them, having to use a time exposure, as there was no sun down under the precipice.

“Now, let’s get to the top of the falls!” cried Peanut. “Is there a path?”

“Yes, there’s a path, but it’s roundabout, and we haven’t time,” the Scout Master answered.

“Ho, we don’t need a path, I guess,” Peanut added. “Just go right up those rocks over there, clinging to the little hemlocks.”

He jumped across the brook from boulder to boulder, and started to scramble up the precipice, on what looked like rocks covered with mossy soil and young trees. He got about six feet, when all the soil came off under his feet, the little tree he was hanging to came off on top of him, and he descended in a shower of mould, moss, mud and evergreen.

“Guess again, Peanut,” the Scout Master laughed, when he saw the boy rise, unhurt. “You can’t climb safely over wet moss, you know—or you didn’t know.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Peanut, ruefully regarding the precipice. “But I did want to get up there.”

“Forward march for Kinsman, I say,” Art put in. “That’s the business of the day.”

They started down. At the inclined plane Peanut decided to slide. He crouched on his heels upon the smooth rock, and began to descend. But the rock sloped inward almost imperceptibly. Half-way down he was on the edge of the water, two feet more and he was in the water. His feet went out from under him, and sitting in the stream (which was only about three inches deep over the slide) he went down like lightning, into the brook below!

The rest set up a shout. Peanut got up upon the farther bank, and stood dripping in the path. He was soaked from the waist down. “Ho, what do I care? It’s a warm day,” said he. But he pulled off his boots and emptied the water out of them, and then wrung out his stockings and trousers. The rest didn’t wait. They went laughing down the path, and Peanut had to follow on the run.

When he caught up, everybody was looking very stern. “Now, Peanut, no more nonsense,” Mr. Rogers said. “You’ll keep to the path hereafter. We want no broken bones, nor colds, nor sore feet from spoiled shoes. Remember, this is the last time!”

He spoke soberly, sternly. “Yes, sir!” said Peanut, not seeing the wink the Scout Master gave the rest.

At camp they shouldered their equipment, stopped at the little store Mr. Sheldon kept in a wing of his house, to buy some provisions and to say goodbye, and at ten o’clock were tramping up the road of the narrow valley, with the blue bulk of Moosilauke directly south of them, Cannon Mountain just behind to the left, up which they had gone half-way to the falls, and directly on their left the northern ridges of Kinsman, covered with dense forest.

Half a mile down the road Mr. Rogers led the way through a pair of bars, and they crossed a pasture, went panting up a tremendously steep path between dense young spruces, passed through another pasture, and began to climb a steep logging road. It was hard, steady plodding.

“I’m gettin’ dry,” said Peanut, “but my pants still stick!”

After a while, the path left the logging road, and swung up still steeper through the trees. Suddenly they heard water, and a moment later were standing on a shelf of rock over a waterfall, which came forth from one of the most curious formations they had ever seen.

“Another chance for you to get wet, Peanut!” laughed Frank. “What is this place, Mr. Rogers?”

“It’s called Kinsman Flume,” the Scout Master answered.

The flume was a cleft not more than eight feet wide, between two great ledges of moss-grown rock. It ran back into the hill two hundred feet, and was at least thirty feet deep. The brook came into the upper end over a series of waterfalls, and ran out of the lower end, where the boys were, down another fall. Frank took a picture of it, and then they crossed the brook at the lower end, and followed the path up along the top. The path brought them into another logging road, which presently came out into a level clearing. As they had not seen the top of the mountain since they entered the woods, everybody gave a gasp now. There, ahead of them, was the summit—but looking just as high, just as far off, as ever! Art pulled out his watch.

“We’ve been going an hour and a quarter—whew!” he said. “I thought we were ’most there.”

“A little bigger than it looks, eh?” Mr. Rogers laughed. “Most mountains fool you that way.”

The party plodded on a way across the level plateau, and then the ascent began again—up, up, up, by a path which had evidently once been a logging road, but had now been eroded by the water, till it was little better than the dry bed of a brook—and not always dry at that. The boys began to pant, and mop their foreheads. Then they began to shift their blanket rolls from one shoulder to the other. The pace had slowed down.

“How about that mile an hour being ridiculously slow, Art?” Mr. Rogers inquired.

“We’re not doing much better, that’s a fact,” Art admitted.

Just as he spoke, a partridge suddenly went up from the path, not twenty-five feet ahead, with a great whir-r-r. When they reached the spot where he rose, they found a tiny, clear spring. Art flung down his burden, and dropped on his knees with his cup.

“Good place for lunch, I say,” remarked Peanut.

“Me, too, on that,” said Frank.

Rob looked ahead. The path was growing still steeper. He looked back, and through the trees he could see far below to the valley.

“One more vote,” he said.

“Carried,” said Art, running for fuel.

After a lunch of bacon and powdered eggs, the party lolled an hour in the shade, half asleep, and then resumed the climb. The path very soon entered a forest of a different sort. It was still chiefly hard wood, but very much darker and denser than that below. The trail, too, was not a logging road. It was marked only by blazes on the trees, and the forest floor was black and damp with untold ages of leaf-mould.

“I guess we’ve got above the line of lumbering,” said Rob.

“We have,” said the Scout Master.

Art looked about. “Then this is really primeval forest!” he exclaimed—“just what it was when there were only Indians in this country!”

He investigated the trees more carefully. “Why, most of them are birches,” he cried, “but they are so old and green with moss that they don’t look white at all. And look how short they are, for such big trunks.”

“You are nearly 4,000 feet up now, remember,” Mr. Rogers reminded him, “and they are dwarfed by the storms.”

They came presently out of this dim bit of primeval forest into a growth composed almost exclusively of spruce. It was thirty feet high at first, but the path was very steep, and growing rocky, and in five minutes the spruces had shrunk in height to ten feet. The boys scented the summit and began to hurry. They struck a level place, and from it, in gaps between the stunted spruces, they began to get hints of the view. A quick final scramble, and they found themselves on the north peak. Peanut was leading. His clothes were dry now, except for a new soaking of perspiration, and his spirits high. Rob was right on his heels. The rest heard their shouts, and a second later stood beside them on a big flat rock, above the spruces which were only three or four feet tall here, and looked out upon the most wonderful view they had ever beheld. It made them all silent for a moment.

Right at their feet, on the opposite side from which they had come up, the mountain dropped away in an almost sheer precipice for a thousand feet. At the bottom of that precipice was a perfectly level plateau, covered with forest, and apparently two miles long by half a mile wide, with a tiny lake, Lonesome Lake, at one end. Beyond it the mountain again fell away precipitously into an unseen gorge. From out of that gorge, on the farther side, rose the massive wall of Lafayette, Lincoln, Haystack and Liberty, four peaks which are almost like one long mountain with Lafayette, at the northern end, the highest point, a thousand feet higher than the boys. The whole side of this long rampart is so steep that great landslides have scarred it, and the last thousand feet of it is bare rock. It looked to the boys tremendously big, and the one blue mountain beyond it, to the east, which was high enough to peep over seemed very high indeed—Mount Carrigain.

Peanut drew in his breath with a whistle. Lou sighed. “That’s the biggest thing I ever saw,” he said. Then he added, “And the most beautiful!”

To the southeast, below Mount Liberty at the end of the big rock rampart, the boys could see off to the far horizon, over a billow of blue mountains like the wave crest of a gigantic sea—the Sandwich range, with the sharp cone of Chocorua as its most prominent peak. Facing due south, they could see, close to them, the south peak of Kinsman, perhaps half a mile away, across a saddle which was much deeper than it had looked from the base. Beyond the south peak was Moosilauke, seeming very close, and on top of it they could now see the Summit House. To the west, they looked down the slope up which they had climbed, to the valley, where the houses looked like specks, and then far off to the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Peanut grew impatient. “Come on, fellers,” he cried. “This ain’t the top. What are we waiting here for?”

“Oh, let us see the view, Peanut,” said Rob. “What’s your rush?”

“Well, stay and see your old view; I’m going to get to the top first,” Peanut answered. “Where are we going to camp, Mr. Rogers?”

“Back here, I guess. There’s a good spring just over the edge below. We’ll go to the south peak, and then come back.”

Peanut dumped off his pack into the bushes, kneeled down and took out the flag and his firecrackers, and then slipped over the brow and disappeared rapidly along the path which led across the saddle to the south peak.

The rest waited till Art had put some dehydrated spinach to soak in a kettle, and then followed more slowly, seeing nothing of Peanut, for the path wound amid the stunted spruces which were just tall enough to out-top a man. They went down a considerable incline, and found two or three hundred feet of fresh climbing ahead of them when they reached the base of the south cone. They were scrambling up through the spruces when suddenly from the summit they heard a report—then a second—a third—a fourth—then the rapid musketry of a whole bunch of cannon crackers. It sounded odd far up here in the silence, and not very loud. The great spaces of air seemed to absorb the sound.

When they reached the top, Peanut had stripped a spruce of all branches, and tied the flag to the top. It was whipping out in the breeze. As the first boy’s head appeared in sight, he touched off his last bunch of crackers, and, taking off his hat, cried, “Ladies and gentlemen, salute your flag in honor of the Independence of these United States of America, and the Boy Scouts of Southmead, Massachusetts!”

“Peanut’s making a Fourth of July oration,” Frank called down to the rest.

Rob laughed. “From the granite hills of New Hampshire to the sun-kissed shores of the golden Pacific,” he declaimed, “from the Arctic circle to the Rio Grande, the dear old stars and stripes shall wave—”

“Shut up,” said Lou. “This place ain’t the spot to make fun of the flag in. I say we all just take off our hats and salute it, here on top of this mountain!”

Lou spoke seriously. Peanut, who was always quick to take a suggestion, instantly acquiesced. “Sure,” he said. “Lou’s right. Hats off to the flag on the Fourth of July!”

The five Scouts and Mr. Rogers stood on the rock by the improvised flagstaff, and saluted in silence. Then the Scout Master said quietly, “We can see from here a good deal of the United States, can’t we? We can see the granite hills of New Hampshire, all right. We can realize the job it was for our ancestors to conquer this country from the wilderness and the Indians, to put roads and railways through these hills. I guess we ought to be pretty proud of the old flag.”

The boys put on their hats again, and Frank took a picture of them, gathered around the flag. Then Peanut let out a pent-up whoop. “Never celebrated the Fourth like this before!” he cried. “Golly, but Moosilauke looks big from here!”

It certainly did look big. It seemed to tower over them. The western sun was throwing the shadows of its own summit down the eastern slopes, and the whole great mountain was hazy, mysterious.

“Are we going to climb that?” asked Frank.

“Sure,” said Art.

“Whew!” said Frank. “Makes my legs ache already!”

“It’s easier than this one,” Mr. Rogers laughed. “Now let’s go back and make camp.”

The party retraced their steps to the north peak where, just below the summit and overlooking the precipitous drop to the Lonesome Lake plateau, was a small but cold and delicious spring.

“How does the water get way up here, is what stumps me,” said Frank.

“I suppose it is rain and snow water, held in the rocks,” the Scout Master replied. “Perhaps some of it comes along the rock fissures from the south peak, but that wouldn’t be necessary. There is a little spring almost at the top of Lafayette over there. We’ll see it in a few days.”

“How do we get up Lafayette?” asked Art.

“We’ll come down from Moosilauke, and tramp up the Notch down there below our feet now, till we reach Liberty, climb Liberty, and go right along the ridge to Lafayette, and then down to the Profile House,” was the answer.

The boys looked across the valley to the great rock wall on the further side. The sun was sinking low now, and the shadow of Kinsman was cast across. Even as they watched, this shadow mounted slowly up the steep, scarred sides of Liberty and Lincoln, till only their summits were in sunlight, rosy at first and then amethyst. The far hills to the southwest began to fade from sight.

“Gee, it’s time to make camp!” cried Peanut. “Here’s a good, soft place, on this moss.”

He pointed to a level spot on the summit. Mr. Rogers shook his head.

“Nix!” he said. “We’d be chilled through before morning. Which way is the wind?”

Art picked up a piece of dry grass and tossed it into the air. It drifted toward the southeast.

“Northwest,” he said.

“All right. We’ll go down into the spruces to leeward, and keep out of it.”

The boys soon found a sheltered level space some fifty feet below the peak, and began to clear out a sort of nest in the tough spruce.

“Gosh, I never saw anything so tough as these young spruces,” said Frank.

Lou had been examining one he had cut down. “They’re not young,” he answered. “That’s the funny part of it. This one I’ve cut is only four inches through, but it’s years old. I’ve counted at least forty-five rings. Guess they are dwarfed by the storms up here, like Japanese trees, aren’t they, Mr. Rogers?”

The Scout Master nodded. “I’ve seen ’em only three or four feet high, when they were so thick together, and so tough, that you could literally walk on top of ’em without going through to the ground.”

Peanut dropped his hatchet and slipped down over the rocks to a spot where the trees were as Mr. Rogers had described. He tried to press through, and failed. Then he just scrambled out on top of them, and tried to walk. With every step he half disappeared from sight, while the rest looked on, laughing.

After a few steps, he came back. His hands and face were scratched, and there was a tear in his trousers.

“Excuse me!” he cried. “Gee, the Dismal Swamp has nothing on those mountain spruces! Golly, I begin to admire the man who made this path up here!”

The spruce boughs were so tough, in fact, that only the tips could be used for bedding, and the boys had to trim the branches with their knives to make their bunks on the ground. The camp-fire was built of dead spruce, with some live stumps added, and a kettle of water kept beside it lest a spark ignite the trees close by. Night had come on before supper was ready, and with the coming of night it grew cold, colder than the boys had guessed it could be in July. They put on their sweaters, which, all day, they had been complaining about as extra weight, and they kept close to the fire while Art, with the skill of a juggler, tossed the flapjacks from one side to the other in his fry pan, catching them neatly as they came down. The wind rose higher, and began to moan through the spruces. Far below them was the great black hole of the Notch—just a yawning pit with no bottom. Beyond it the shadowy bulk of Lafayette, Lincoln, Haystack and Liberty loomed up against the starry sky. From this side, not a single light was visible anywhere in the universe. The boys ate their supper almost in silence.

“Gee, this is lonely!” Peanut suddenly blurted out. “I’m going where I can see a light.” He got up and climbed to the summit again, followed by all the others except Lou. They could look westward from the peak, and see the lamps in the houses down in the valley, and the blazing lights of the big hotel on Sugar Hill, and even the street lights in Franconia village.

“There is somebody else in the world!” cried Peanut. “Glad of that. I was beginning to think there wasn’t.”

Just as he spoke, a rocket suddenly went up from Sugar Hill, and burst in the air. It was followed by another, and another. The boys yelled at Lou to come and see the fireworks.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Peanut, “why didn’t I bring a rocket—just one would be better’n none. Wouldn’t it be some sight for the folks down there to see it going up from the top of this old mountain, eh?”

“That would be some celebration, O. K.,” Art cried. “My, let’s come again next year and do it!”

Lou slipped back to camp presently, and Mr. Rogers, returning before the rest, found him sitting on a rock overlooking the black pit of the Notch, gazing out into space.