Mr. Rogers smiled, “We’ll leave it at four o’clock, though,” he answered. “If you think you can beat that schedule, all right. Maybe we’ll be on Adams earlier.”
The party now went down the steps to the carriage road, and swung along down that for a quarter of a mile. Then they turned off to the left by the Gulf Side Trail, and walking over the rough stones with grass between drew near the head wall of the Great Gulf. Soon they were at it. The Great Gulf is a gigantic ravine between the huge eastern shoulder of Mount Washington, called the Chandler Ridge, and the three northern peaks of Madison, Adams and Jefferson. Mount Clay, the fourth of the north peaks, and the one next to Washington, is almost a part of the head wall of the Gulf. The Gulf sides are very precipitous, and as the boys looked across it to the shoulder of Jefferson, where the Six Husbands’ Trail ascends, Lou and Frank began to laugh.
“Glad we haven’t got to climb that to-day!” they cried.
“Lazy stiffs,” said Peanut. “What’s that! A mere nothing!” But he grinned dubiously, even as he spoke.
“Well, we’re in for it now,” said Rob, “so come on.”
“Oh, I’m coming,” Peanut replied.
“Now, Rob, one last word,” said the Scout Master. “I’m giving you the map. Follow the trails agreed on, and promise me not to leave ’em, even for a dozen feet. You are entering unknown country, and dangerous country. Go straight down past the Gulf camp, and you’ll pick up the Six Husbands about a quarter of a mile below—maybe less. Goodbye. Signal, if clear, when you get to Jefferson. If worst comes to worst, go back to the Gulf camp, or if you are on the range, go to the shelter hut just east of Jefferson, on the Adams-Jefferson col.”
Mr. Rogers, Lou and Frank waved their hands as they watched the other three plunge over the edge of the head wall, and begin to descend the two thousand feet of precipitous rock pile which dropped down to where Spaulding Lake lay like a mirror amid the trees at the bottom of the Great Gulf. Then they shouldered packs again, and set out toward the three summits of Clay, just ahead of them, the first stage of their journey over the north peaks to the Madison Hut. The morning was clear and fine now, and they could see for miles upon miles out over green valleys and far blue mountains, while the rocky pyramids of Jefferson, Adams and Madison ahead of them, rising about five hundred feet above the connecting cols, seemed near enough, almost, to hit with a stone, though actually the nearest, Jefferson, was two miles away.
“We’ve got nearly all day for a six mile hike,” the Scout Master said. “Let’s take it easy and enjoy the view.”
So we will leave them climbing slowly up the slope of Clay, and descend the Gulf with Rob, Art and Peanut.