Even as they were going back to camp for breakfast, the hills to the west, touched now with the sun, began to emerge from the mist, or rather the mist seemed to roll up their sides like the curtain at a play. By the time breakfast was over, the sun had appeared over Cannon, and the clouds had mysteriously vanished into a few thin shreds of vapor, like veils far up in the tree tops. It was a splendid day.
“Well, I’ll be switched!” said Art.
“The mountains almost always gather clouds, like a dew, at night in summer,” the Scout Master said. “Well, boys, do you feel up to tackling Bridal Veil Falls before we tackle Kinsman?”
There came a “Yes!” in unison. All packs and equipment were left in camp, and shortly after six the party set out in light marching trim up a logging road which followed the brook bed. It led over a high pasture, and finally plunged into a thick second growth forest, where the dew on the branches soaked everybody, but particularly Peanut, who was leading and got the first of it. The path crossed the brook several times on old corduroy log bridges, now nearly rotted away, and grew constantly steeper. The boys were panting a bit. They hadn’t got their mountain wind yet. After two miles, during which, but for the steepness, they might have been leagues from any mountain for all they could see, they began to hear a roaring in the woods above them. They hastened on, and suddenly, right ahead, they saw a smooth, inclined plane of rock, thirty or forty feet long, with the water slipping down over it like running glass, and above it they saw a sheer precipice sixty feet high, with a V-shaped cut in the centre. Through the bottom of this V the brook came pouring, and tumbled headlong to the ledge below.
“Up we go!” cried Peanut, tackling the smooth sloping ledge at a dry strip on the side. He got a few feet, and began to slip back.
The rest laughed, and tackled the slide at various spots. Only the Scout Master, with a grin, went way to the right and climbed easily up by a hidden path on the side ledge. He got to the base of the falls before the boys did.
“A picture, a picture!” cried Frank, as the rest finally arrived. All the party but Frank scrambled up on a slippery boulder, drenched with spray, beside the falls, and Frank mounted his tripod and took them, having to use a time exposure, as there was no sun down under the precipice.
“Now, let’s get to the top of the falls!” cried Peanut. “Is there a path?”
“Yes, there’s a path, but it’s roundabout, and we haven’t time,” the Scout Master answered.
“Ho, we don’t need a path, I guess,” Peanut added. “Just go right up those rocks over there, clinging to the little hemlocks.”