Bennie took off his mittens again, and beat the snow from the crevices of the rock ahead of him till he could get a good grip with his fingers. Then he shoved his feet out on the tiny ledge below, hardly six inches wide, and slowly, cautiously, made his way toward the other landing. He had only ten feet to go, but in the cold, without gloves, and with the rocks slippery from snow, it was painful work, and he wasn’t sure if his fingers would stand it without letting go, they soon pained him so. Mr. Rogers watched him anxiously, as he played out the rope. The others held their breaths.
But he got there, and a shout went up from everybody. He blew on his fingers and then tied his end of the rope around a tree on the new ledge, while the scout master passed the other end around the first tree, and then threw the end across. When that end, too, was tied, a double rope stretched across the gap between the ledges, and the rest could put it under an armpit, hold it fast with one hand while they grabbed the cracks of rock with the other, and come over in perfect safety. Then they pulled the rope over to them, and started on.
“Some traverse!” Bennie cried. “I thought once I’d have to let go, though, my fingers got so cold.”
“Summer’s the time for this sort of work,” said the scout master.
Billy, who had said nothing for several minutes, looked back at the traverse, and down into the drop of space below.
“I was scared pink,” he said, “and I don’t care who knows it.”
“I wasn’t scared, ’cause I knew Mr. Rogers and Spider would hold me,” said Bennie. “Still, I’d have gone a ways at that, and kind of dangled.”
The new ledge led around a corner, and then upward for twenty feet, and brought them to a pile of jagged rocks which could be climbed without a rope, by brushing off the snow, till they were only twenty feet below the top of the cliff. Here there was only one way up. By grabbing any little handholds they could find, it was possible to climb up about a dozen feet to a tiny ledge, one at a time, and get into a narrow upright crack, about two feet wide. This crack led right to the summit, and you could work up it by pushing with your feet and hands on one side and your back on the other. At least, that is what Bennie declared.
“It’s a chimney!” he cried.
“Well, I wish there was a fire at the bottom of it,” sighed Tom, hitting his hands together.