Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/138

 *five miles away as the crow flies, and saw just the blue bases of the Presidentials, wearing a white hood.

"Say, will that cloud come over here?" asked Peanut. "Kind o' lonesome up here, as it is."

"Ho, we've got a compass. We could always just go west, down to the Notch road," said Art.

Peanut looked down into the Notch. "Thanks," he said, "but if you don't mind I'd rather go by a path."

"I guess we've nothing to fear from those clouds," said the Scout Master. "The wind is west. They're nothing but local."

By this time they had reached the top of Lincoln, after a steady upward toil. Another col lay ahead of them—just a huge knife blade of jagged stone, with the path faintly discernible winding across it and stretching up the rocky slope of the final stone sugar loaf of Lafayette.

"There's journey's end!" cried Mr. Rogers. "All aboard for the final dash to the Pole!"

They descended rapidly from Lincoln, and soon began the ascent again, across the rising slope of the col, and then up the cone of Lafayette itself.

"I'm getting sort of empty," said Frank. "What time is it, Art?"

Art looked at his watch. "No wonder!" he said. "It's one o'clock, and after—twenty minutes after.