CHAPTER XVIII
Through King’s Ravine and Home Again
Art was not the first one up in the morning. When he opened his eyes, he saw the caretaker of the hut moving about the stove. Nobody else was astir in the Scouts’ party, but through the open door Art saw the two men who had arrived the previous evening standing on the rocks, looking off. It was full daylight!
Art climbed hastily down out of his bunk and shook Peanut.
“Lemme ’lone! I got to climb this rock!” said Peanut.
“What do you think you’re doing? You’ve got to get up!” laughed Art.
“Whaz ’at?” said Peanut. Then he opened his eyes, stared into Art’s face, and added, “Hello! Why, I’m awake!”
Meanwhile, the others had waked, also. Rob looked at his watch. “Six o’clock!” he exclaimed. “That’s what comes of sleeping in bunks. All up, and have a look at the weather!”
The weather seemed propitious. The north peaks were all out, and the great shoulder of Chandler Ridge on Washington, across the white mists which filled the Great Gulf, looked like a stone peninsula thrusting out into a foamy sea. There was only a slight wind, and the sun was pleasantly warm already.
“How’s the grub holding out?” asked Mr. Rogers. “If we have breakfast cooked for us inside, it will cost us something. Have we enough left for breakfast and lunch? We’ll have to get supper on the train.”
“Train! Gee whiz, I don’t want to go home! Let’s stay another week,” said Frank.
“That’s the talk!” Peanut cried. “Let’s go down in the Great Gulf and get some trout, and live on them.”
“I’ll shoot a bear with a bow and arrow,” Art added. “We’ll need the meat, too, for we’ve not got more than enough for one good meal—except vegetables. We’ve got a lot of spinach left, ’cause we’ve hardly ever stayed anywhere long enough to soak it, unless we’d had it for breakfast.”
Peanut fished in his rear pocket and produced his purse. “I’ve got enough to buy breakfast, if the caretaker’ll sell us any, and a sleeper home,” he announced. “Golly, though, where’s my return ticket!”
He began searching wildly in all his pockets, while the others investigated their pocketbooks, to see if they had their tickets. Peanut finally dashed back into the hut, and discovered his in his pack. The tickets were from Fabyans, however, and as they would reach the railroad at Randolph, some miles east, there would be a small extra fare. All the boys had money enough left for the trip, and for breakfast as well.
“I’ll shout you all to supper on the train,” said Mr. Rogers. “Let’s save all our grub for a whacking big farewell luncheon in King’s Ravine, and buy breakfast here, eh?”
“You’re on,” the Scouts replied, and they hastened back into the hut, where the two men joined them. The caretaker finally agreed to give the boys breakfast out of his own stores, though he didn’t seem very keen about it. Usually, he only cooks meals for visitors at the hut when they provide the food.
“How do you get the food up here?” Peanut asked him.
“The birds bring it,” he said.
“You think you’re Joshua, don’t you?” Peanut retorted.
“Why?” asked the man, looking puzzled.
“’Cause he was fed by the ravens. Wake up and hear the birdies,” Peanut laughed. “Now will you tell me?”
The man grunted, and made no reply.
(“I suppose he has to pack it up from Randolph,” one of the men whispered. “It’s no cinch, either.”)
Breakfast over, the boys paid fifty cents each for their night’s lodging, and a dollar and a half for cooking dinner and the breakfast. Then they set out for the summit of Madison, before descending to the railroad. The sharp cone of Madison rose directly behind the hut. Indeed, you could step from the roof of the hut in the rear out onto the rocks. It was only a twenty minute climb, without packs, for the hut is 4,828 feet above the sea, and Madison, the last of the Presidentials, is only 5,380. From the top they had their last high prospect, and they drank it in to the full. Eastward, they looked out over the ravine of the Peabody River to the timbered slopes of the Moriahs and Carter’s Dome, another group of mountains which lured their feet. Beyond them was the state of Maine. Southward, over the Great Gulf, was Chandler Ridge, with the Chandler River leaping down its steep side, like a ribbon of silver. South westward lay the bare stone pyramids of Adams and the two lesser Adamses (Jefferson was hidden) and finally the great bulk of Washington to the left of Clay, lying high above them all, far off against the blue sky. Due west, they looked down into the yawning hole of King’s Ravine. It was a mighty prospect of bare rocks piled more than a 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.
“Glad I’m not going up,” said Frank.
“Well, nothing is steep to me after the head wall of Huntington,” Lou said. “I can see something under my feet here, at any rate.”
The descent was rapid, for they dropped 1,300 feet in the five-sixteenths of a mile to the floor of the ravine, which means an ascent of 4,160 feet to the mile. Anybody good at mathematics can reckon out what this angle is. The boys estimated it roughly as they were descending at about seventy degrees. Nobody had time to figure it on paper, however, and when they got to the bottom, there was too much else to see. Anyhow, it was steep going!
They found the bottom of the ravine strewn with great boulders which had fallen down from the cliffs on three sides. Some of them were as big as houses, and in a cave under one they found ice. Two paths led down the ravine, one over the boulders called “Elevated Route for Rapid Transit,” the other “The Subway.”
The guide book said the latter took longer but was more interesting.
“The Subway for us!” cried Peanut.
So they took the Subway, and though it was not a second Lost River, this path took them by a tortuous route through several caves, and under many an overhanging boulder, where the air was chill and there were strange echoes. Again, at the lower end of the ravine, they descended rapidly for half a mile by a steep way, into the woods again at last, and finally stopped by a brook for the farewell lunch.
The last of the powdered eggs, spinach soaked and boiled as long as they dared wait, till it wasn’t too tough to eat, the last of the bacon from Lou’s and Mr. Rogers’ packs, a single small flapjack apiece, a quarter cake of sweet chocolate for each, and tea, completed the repast. After it was over, they carefully burned all the wrapping paper and Art blazed a tree and printed on the fresh wood, “Farewell Camp,” and the date. Then under it they all wrote their names.
It was less than two miles from this point out to the railroad and for the first time in many days they were walking on almost level ground. Before long, the woods opened, and they came out on the meadows of Randolph. Across a field in front of them lay the railroad track and the tiny station. They dropped packs on the platform and turned to look at the mountains. Only the north peaks were visible—Madison, Adams and Jefferson—three pyramids against the sky.
“Golly, how funny it feels to be down on the level again!” said Peanut.
“And how far away they look! Think, we were up there only this morning!” said Frank.
“And how small our hills will look when we get home,” said Lou.
“Well, anyhow,” put in Art, “cheer up and think how good some of mother’s pies will taste.”
“There’s something in that,” laughed Rob and Mr. Rogers.
The train soon came, and carried them by a roundabout route to Fabyans, where they had to change to the night train down the Connecticut valley. At Fabyans, where the big Fabyan Hotel sits beside the railroad, they bought some more souvenir post-cards and Peanut got a pound of very sticky candy which Mr. Rogers said would spoil his supper, whereat he answered, “Wait and see!” They could see from here the whole south range, culminating in the peak of Washington, and thus could follow their adventurous climb over the Crawford Bridle Path. Again, the peaks seemed very far off, and Lou said it was like a dream to think that they had been walking way up there only a few days before.
Once aboard the train, they secured berths for the night, and began to think of supper. Mr. Rogers was true to his word—and so was Peanut. He provided—and Peanut ate.
“What’s a pound of candy to an empty tum?” said Peanut. “Besides, Frank and Art ate most of it.”
They had a last faint glimpse of Lafayette against the twilight at Bethlehem junction, and then the train moved on through the darkness.
“Well, it’s goodbye mountains,” said Rob. “Let’s fix up our mileage.”
Each Scout got out his precious staff, battered now, with the end pounded into a mushroom by the hard usage on the rocks, and cut the mileage for the day—five miles was all they could make it, even with the trip up the Madison cone included.
“Disgraceful!” said Peanut. “Five miles! Bah!”
“But the day before is fair,” said Art, “considering the Six Husbands’!”
“Let’s see, have I got it right?” asked Peanut. “Mile and three-quarters from Tuckerman hut to Washington, three and a half miles to Six Husbands’, mile and a half to sprained ankle, mile up Jefferson and back, three miles to the hut—that’s ten and three-quarters miles, and I guess we can call it eleven, all right, and some up and down hill, take it from me!”
“Well, we did more’n that,” said Frank; “we had the mile and three-quarters from Tuckerman’s, six to the Madison Hut along the Gulf Side, and three back to you folks, and three back to the hut again. That’s thirteen and three-quarters, and we took in the summits of Jefferson and Adams, so we can call it an even fifteen. Some up and down for us, too.”
“Well, eleven over the Six Husbands’ will stand off your fifteen,” Peanut declared; “won’t it, Rob?”
“I think it will,” said Rob, “but let’s not fight about it. What’s the grand total?”
“Eight the first day,” said Art, “from Sugar Hill station to camp; ten up Kinsman; twenty-one on Moosilauke; seventeen in Lost River and on to the Flume camp for you fellows, and eighteen for Peanut and me; sixteen over Lafayette; ten on Cannon and in Crawford’s; nine on the Bridle Path, fighting storm; thirteen and a quarter in Tuckerman’s and Huntington—let’s call it fourteen, ’cause we climbed the Huntington head wall a way; eleven for half of us in the Gulf, and fifteen for the rest; and five on the last day. What does that make?”
Rob, who had put down the readings on a bit of paper, added the total. “One hundred and twenty-one for half of us, one hundred and twenty-six for the rest,” he said.
“About a hundred and twenty-five miles in ten days,” said Mr. Rogers. “Well, that’s not so bad, when you’re toting a pack and a blanket, and fighting clouds and hurricanes, and shinning up Six Husbands’ trails. Are you glad you came, boys?”
“Are we!” they shouted, in one breath. “You bet!”
“We haven’t done so awful much real scouting though,” added Peanut.
“Why not?” said the Scout Master. “It seems to me we have. We’ve been prepared, haven’t we? We’ve handled ourselves in storms and clouds, we’ve helped other folks, we’ve known how to signal for aid from one mountain top to another, we’ve kept ourselves well and hardy in the open, and we’ve had a bully good time. After all, we’ve put a lot of scout lore into use, when you come to think of it. That’s what scout lore is for—to use, eh, Peanut?”
“Guess you’re right. Gee, you’re always right!” said Peanut. “I say three cheers for Mr. Rogers, the best Scout Master in America! Now, one——”
“Sh!” said Rob. “We all agree, but the man in that next berth is snoring already. He might not agree!”
“Well, I can snore as loud as he can,” cried Peanut, “if I get the chance. Let’s turn in. And to-morrow A. M. we’ll be in old Southmead! Golly, wish I was in the Great Gulf!”
“You couldn’t tell the other fellers what a good time we’ve had, if you were,” said Art.
“That’s so,” Peanut reflected. “Aw, the stiffs! I hadn’t thought about ’em till just this minute. The stiffs! Think of the fun they missed!”
It was eight o’clock the next morning when the five Scouts and Mr. Rogers, tanned and lean, with shoes battered and worn thin by the stony trails, marched up Southmead Main Street from the railroad station, and found the village just as they had left it.
“It’s all here, as if we’d never been away!” said Rob.
“But we are changed,” said Lou. “We’ve got pictures in our heads, and memories, that we didn’t have before. We’ve lifted up our eyes unto the hills!”
“And our feet, too,” said Peanut. “Yes, sir, we are changed. These old Southmead hills haven’t grown smaller, but our eyes have grown bigger.”
“You’re a psychologist, Peanut,” laughed Mr. Rogers.
“I’m a hungry one, whatever it is,” Peanut replied. “Hope ma has saved some oatmeal.”
“So do I!”
“So do I!”
“So do I!”
“So do I!”
“We seem to have the same old appetites, anyhow!” laughed Rob, as the White Mountain hike ended at the post-office, and the six hikers scattered for their homes.
THE END
BOOKS BY
Walter P. Eaton
ADULT
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