They turned to the right now, passing a big hotel on the very crest of the hill, and as they passed, the setting sun behind them turned all the mountains a bright amethyst, so that they looked, as Lou put it, “like great big jewels.”
“It’s beautiful!” he added, enthusiastically.
“Make a poem about it,” said Peanut. “Say, Mr. Rogers, Lou writes poetry. You oughter read it! He wrote a poem to Lucy Parker one day, didn’t you, Lou?”
“Shut up,” said Lou, turning red.
“Well, if I could write poetry, this view would make me do it, all right,” Rob put in. “Now where to, Mr. Rogers?”
“Getting hungry?” said the Scout Master.
“I sure am.”
“Well, in an hour we’ll be at camp. All down-hill, too.”
“Hooray!” cried Art. “This pack is getting heavy.”
The party now turned sharply down the hill toward the east, and the great double range of the Franconia Mountains, which Mr. Rogers named for them. The highest peak on the north of the farther range was Lafayette, 5,200 feet high. The northern peak of the first range was Cannon Mountain, the Old Man’s face being on the farther side of it. To the south the twin summits, like a saddleback, were the two peaks of Kinsman, which they would climb in the morning. As they dropped rapidly down the hill, they suddenly saw to the south, in the fading light, a huge bulk of a mountain filling up the vista. “That’s Moosilauke,” Mr. Rogers said. “We tackle him day after to-morrow.”