“That’s the idea,” he cried, “eh, fellows?” and a chorus of assenting voices came from his chums.
“And now that it’s all settled,” remarked Fred, as he slowly turned the pages of a history, “would you mind taking a couple of these books along? This is a dandy—tells all about Peter the Great; and there’s another about Mars, by a chap named Lowell, and——”
But Joe interrupted him with a loud burst of laughter, whereupon Fred told him just what he thought of such conduct, and of the dreadful risk he ran of growing up to be a perfect ignoramus, all of which Joe listened to with many smiles and chuckles.
After sitting around for a quarter of an hour, Jack proposed climbing the Palisades, and this being agreeable to all, the five soon started out.
Viewed at close range, the cliffs loomed up grim and gigantic, the fringe of trees lining the top appearing like a row of bushes. The base of the Palisades is almost everywhere broken into a slope formed by the débris that has fallen from the cliffs, and in places this extends upward for hundreds of feet, reaching to the very summit. Norman Redfern declared that he would soon pilot them to a place where the climb to the top would be easy.
The slope along which they made their way was thickly wooded in parts, and the rich green foliage and cool, refreshing shadows pierced by the shafts of sunlight presented a delightful picture. Close by was the ruin of a mill. A few crumbling walls and a rusted fly-wheel alone remained to tell of its existence. A melancholy stillness seemed to hover about it, as if to draw a contrast between its present condition and that of its busy past, and the boys, scrambling over the cracked and broken walls, speculated with interest as to the causes which had brought about so wonderful a change.
A startled hare leaped quickly over a pile of bricks and was soon lost to view amidst the underbrush.
“If we only had a pop gun, we could have popped him,” said Jack.
Wandering in and out, now close to the river, then near the cliffs, Redfern finally pointed out a path which zigzagged its way upward. But the active lads were not long content with this easy way of climbing and took advantage of any short cut that presented itself. Some of these were very steep, and often they slipped and slid and only saved themselves by clutching tightly to the tangled grasses and bushes. Showers of stones and earth occasionally rattled downward, and Joe distinguished himself by falling flat in a deep cut formed by the rains and still wet and soggy.
Every foot of the climb so far was through a charming little wood, composed mainly of small trees, and all aglow with sunlight.