Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/93

 more. Let's get to Lost River," exclaimed the girl in pink.

She seemed to pick Art as her natural escort, and the pair of them led the way through the door, beside the guide.

"I don't see any river, though," said Peanut, to the girl he was with, as they went through the woods behind the cabin.

"Of course you don't; it's a lost river," she said.

"Oh!" said Peanut. "I forgot that. Well, here's where it was lost, I guess."

The guide just ahead of them had suddenly disappeared into a hole in the ground, helping Art and the pink girl down after him.

"My goodness!" exclaimed the girl at Peanut's side. She was a small girl, with very black eyes, which twinkled. The other girls had called her Alice.

"Oh, it's nothing," Peanut reassured her. "We've been falling down places since six o'clock."

"I wasn't thinking of myself," Alice answered, "but of poor Mamma. Mamma isn't so slender as—as you are."

"Mr. Rogers will look after Mamma," said Peanut. "Come on!"

He dropped ahead of her into the hole, and clasping his hands in front of him, made a stirrup for her to put her foot in, like a step, as she followed.