Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/216

 platform at the top of the railroad. From this platform a board walk led up to the door of the Tip Top House. Across the track, steps led down to a barn and a second house, the coach house at the top of the carriage road, which ascends the eastern slope of the mountain.

The girl, as Rob and her fiancé helped her up on the platform, gave a weary sigh, almost a sob, and then, hobbling on her lame ankle, she tried to run up the walk to the Tip Top House. The boys followed a little more slowly, looking first at the cellar hole where the old Summit Hotel used to stand (it was burned down in 1908) and where a new hotel will have been built before this story is published.

It was nearly half-past five when they entered the long, low room of the Tip Top House, and felt the sudden warmth of a wood-fire roaring in a great iron stove.

Dumping their packs in a corner, the boys made for this stove, and held out their hands toward the warmth.

"Gee, it feels good," said Peanut.

"Feels good on my legs, all right," said Frank. "I'm kind o' stiff and tired, I don't mind saying."

The girl had disappeared. She had already talked to her mother at the foot of the mountain by the telephone which runs down the railroad trestle, and the wife of the proprietor of the Tip Top House had taken her up-stairs to put her to bed.