The tall man laughed. “Sure,” he said. “Four alarms!”
A mile or more of climbing brought them into the ravine. It was not so large as Tuckerman’s, and it had no lake embosomed in its rocky depths, but in some ways it was an even wilder and more impressive spot. On the right, to the east, the cliff wall rose up much steeper than in Tuckerman’s, to Nelson’s Crag. On the west, also, the wall was almost perpendicular, while the jagged and uneven head wall, which did not form the beautiful amphitheatre curve of Tuckerman’s head wall, and had no snow arch at its base, looked far harder to climb.
“Wow!” said Peanut. “You win. I don’t want to climb here.”
“Why, it’s easy. You can climb where other folks have,” said the stout man, with a wink. “Folks have climbed all three of these cliffs.”
“That one to the left?” asked Peanut.
“Sure,” said the man.
“What with, an aeroplane?”
“With hobnail boots,” said the other.
“I guess they had pretty good teeth and finger nails, also,” Frank put in.
A half mile more, and the trail ended at a great mass of debris and broken rocks piled up in the shape of a fan at the base of the head wall.