Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/227

 "Well, I've seen him cover seventy yards," was the answer.

"Some punt!" cried Peanut. "Did that make you buy a bugle?"

"Say, who's telling the story?" the man said. "No, it didn't make me buy a bugle, but this chap who could punt so far bought a cornet. What do you suppose he bought a cornet for?"

"I can't imagine why anybody should buy a cornet," put in one of the other men.

"Shut up, Tom," said the bugler. "Well, he bought a cornet so he could learn to play it, and after he had learned to play it (keeping everybody in the dormitory from studying while he learned, too!), he spent a summer vacation in the Rocky Mountains, and carried that cornet up to the highest peaks that he could climb, and played it. He learned to play it just for that—just for the joy of hearing horn music float out into the great spaces of the sky. Also, he made echoes with it against the cliffs while he was climbing up. After that summer he never played it again."

"Why didn't he see how far he could punt a football from the top of Pike's Peak?" Peanut grinned.

"He used up all his breath playing the cornet, and couldn't blow up the ball," said the man.

Lou wasn't taking this story as a joke, however