Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/244

 Ravine, the wooded floor of which, sheltering the dark mirror of Hermit Lake, lay over fifteen hundred feet below them.

"Golly, where's your parachute?" said Peanut.

"We don't need a parachute," Mr. Rogers laughed. "Here's the path."

The boys looked over into the pit. Across the ravine rose another precipitous wall, with a lump at the end called the Lion's Head. The ravine itself was like a long, narrow horseshoe cut into the rocky side of Mount Washington—a horseshoe more than a thousand feet deep. They were on one side of the open end.

"Well, here goes!" cried Peanut, and he began to descend.

At first the trail went down over a series of levels, or steps, close to the edge of the precipice. At one point this precipice seemed actually to hang out over the gulf below, and it seemed as if they could throw a stone into Hermit Lake.

Peanut tried it, in fact, but the stone sailed out, descended, and disappeared, as if under the wall.

"These are the hanging cliffs," said Mr. Rogers. "We'll go down faster soon."

Presently the path did swing back to the left, and began to drop right down the cliff side. The cliff wall wasn't quite so steep as it had looked from above, and the path was perfectly possible for travel;