Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/304

 mile in air, of great gulfs between them, of far green valleys and far blue hills.

"Oh, I like the mountains!" cried Lou. "I want to come to the mountains every year! I want to stand up under the sky and see off—way off, like this!"

"That goes for me, too, even if I can't say it so pretty," declared Peanut.

Reluctantly, they descended from the cone, picked up their packs at the hut, and with Peanut throwing back a final "Goodbye, Josh," to the caretaker, they hit the Gulf Side Trail for a scant quarter of a mile, swung off of it to the right, and stood presently in a kind of gateway of great stones, with the world dropping out of sight between the posts.

"Look back!" said Mr. Rogers.

They turned. Behind them, framed by the huge stones of the natural gate, rose the cone of Madison against the blue sky—that and nothing else.

"Goodbye, Maddie," said Peanut.

"Au revoir," said Lou. "See you again next summer, maybe!"

They turned once more, and at once began to drop down the head wall of King's Ravine, a ravine almost as fine as Tuckerman's, discovered and explored by the Reverend Thomas Starr King in 1857 and named after him.

"Say, this trail has the Six Husbands' guessing," said Art.