“We sure never came over anything like this!” the rest of the party began complaining. But on they scuttled, leapt and sprawled, no one finding any better way.
“Hurry, there’s our lake!” shouted Pedro finally. “I’ll bet if I could throw a stone hard enough, it would scare the fish.”
But Norris spoke in alarm: “We couldn’t see any lake on the trail going up. On the contrary, we saw the peak to our left. Don’t you remember? Now see! That peak is on our right!”
“Fellows, we are on the wrong side of this ridge,” he decided. “And what is more, instead of going back down the middle crest, we have gone clear on to the third peak.” (For the ridge was a three peaked affair, the middle being the lowest.) “The best thing now is to circle around as near the top as we can go, till we strike the trail. If we keep circling, we are bound to strike it sooner or later. But let’s not all go together, or we might start a rock-slide. Let’s ‘watch our step!’ What would we do if one of you put his ankle out of commission?”
The boys had little breath to waste on comment. Probably none but Norris had any vivid realization of the danger they were in, but each fellow had a keen eye to keeping his footing. Rock-slides the three boys had never seen, but a sprained knee or a crushed foot was something they could understand. Pedro also had a weather eye out for rattlesnakes, to whom these rocks would have been paradise if it had not been such a chill elevation.
As the sun sank lower and lower, they began secretly to wonder what it would be to have to spend the night on this windy peak, without even an emergency ration,—unpardonable over-thought! They circled steadily, Norris now in the lead, the boys spreading out fan-wise as they followed, Pedro even getting clear to the foot of the granite where he thought he would have easier going through the woods, though he would also have a larger arc to traverse. He felt safer on solid ground, though had he measured, he might have seen that he had climbed as far in going down as did the others in circling around.
Once a huge bowlder that overhung a precipice rocked under Ted, and it was only by a swift spring that he saved himself. Many of the smaller rocks tipped warningly, and he frequently stumbled. How slow their progress seemed! How fast the sun was sinking in the west! And how astoundingly their shoes were wearing through! It was three hours later that Pedro, down in the edge of the woods, gave a shout and began waving his arms in the wildest manner. Then along the way that he picked in coming to meet them, Norris with his glasses could just make out the brown ribbon of the trail.
Fifteen minutes more and they were lined up ready for the homeward march, cured once and for all of short-cuts, and divided only as to whether it would be better to run, at the risk of a turned ankle, while there was light to see their footing, or walk, and have to go the last half of the way in darkness.
They finally did some of both, running where the trail lay free from stones, and eventually having to make their way by the feel of the ground under the feet, and the memory of the mountain meadows whose perfume they passed, and the sound of the creek to their right. The stars were out, giving a faint but welcome light that served as guide when finally they stumbled into camp, bone-weary but safe, and nothing loth to set all hands for a square meal before tumbling in.
Throwing some of their reserve supply of fuel on the fire-place, they soon had the home fires burning cheerily, and Pedro was demonstrating his can-opener cookery.