He jumped across the brook from boulder to boulder, and started to scramble up the precipice, on what looked like rocks covered with mossy soil and young trees. He got about six feet, when all the soil came off under his feet, the little tree he was hanging to came off on top of him, and he descended in a shower of mould, moss, mud and evergreen.
“Guess again, Peanut,” the Scout Master laughed, when he saw the boy rise, unhurt. “You can’t climb safely over wet moss, you know—or you didn’t know.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Peanut, ruefully regarding the precipice. “But I did want to get up there.”
“Forward march for Kinsman, I say,” Art put in. “That’s the business of the day.”
They started down. At the inclined plane Peanut decided to slide. He crouched on his heels upon the smooth rock, and began to descend. But the rock sloped inward almost imperceptibly. Half-way down he was on the edge of the water, two feet more and he was in the water. His feet went out from under him, and sitting in the stream (which was only about three inches deep over the slide) he went down like lightning, into the brook below!
The rest set up a shout. Peanut got up upon the farther bank, and stood dripping in the path. He was soaked from the waist down. “Ho, what do I care? It’s a warm day,” said he. But he pulled off his boots and emptied the water out of them, and then wrung out his stockings and trousers. The rest didn’t wait. They went laughing down the path, and Peanut had to follow on the run.
When he caught up, everybody was looking very stern. “Now, Peanut, no more nonsense,” Mr. Rogers said. “You’ll keep to the path hereafter. We want no broken bones, nor colds, nor sore feet from spoiled shoes. Remember, this is the last time!”
He spoke soberly, sternly. “Yes, sir!” said Peanut, not seeing the wink the Scout Master gave the rest.
At camp they shouldered their equipment, stopped at the little store Mr. Sheldon kept in a wing of his house, to buy some provisions and to say goodbye, and at ten o’clock were tramping up the road of the narrow valley, with the blue bulk of Moosilauke directly south of them, Cannon Mountain just behind to the left, up which they had gone half-way to the falls, and directly on their left the northern ridges of Kinsman, covered with dense forest.
Half a mile down the road Mr. Rogers led the way through a pair of bars, and they crossed a pasture, went panting up a tremendously steep path between dense young spruces, passed through another pasture, and began to climb a steep logging road. It was hard, steady plodding.