“What kind of a scout are you?” Mr. Rogers asked. “Want to hog all the fun?”
Bennie reddened. “No, it isn’t that,” he said, “but me and Spider sort of discovered this, and we want to try it out first. A lot of ’em would only laugh. I got it out of a book.”
“Ho, that’s it!” laughed the scout master. “You don’t want to be caught reading a book! Well, I’ve a good mind to assemble the whole troop, and tell ’em the glad news. Cheer up, though, I won’t. The shock might be bad for ’em.”
“He’s got your number,” said Spider, as the two scouts left.
Bennie grinned, but he looked a little sheepish.
It took a lot of explaining before Mrs. Capen would let the boys have the wash boiler, but finally they persuaded her, and slipped the coil of rope into the water, leaving it there all night to boil.
The next day the water was a dark brown color, but the rope, after they took it out and stretched it as hard as they could from the barn around a tree and back again, dried out much softer than it had been, so that it could be easily handled. And, to complete their happiness, that night it began to snow again heavily.
“I hope it don’t stop till Saturday, and there’s six feet on the level!” cried Bennie.
There weren’t six feet, but there were more than two, badly drifted, when Saturday dawned bright and clear. When Mr. Rogers and the four scouts set out for the cliffs, two miles away, they were on snowshoes. Bennie carried the rope, carefully coiled, over his shoulder, and he had a scout hatchet in his belt, to cut steps with. Each member of the party had an alpenstock, also, some of them made by taking the guard off old ski poles, some merely by sharpening a five foot length of pole. The snow was deep, but it was also fine and powdery, so that even on snowshoes they sank well in, and had to take turns breaking trail.
“It doesn’t look to me as if we’d have to cut many steps,” said the scout master.