“I don’t mind it,” sang back Peanut. “Art feels it because he’s so fat!”
They toiled on a few moments more in silence, and then Lou suddenly exclaimed, “Look! a junco!”
Sure enough, out from under a rock was hopping a junco. Art went toward it, and looking under the rock found the nest.
“Well!” he said. “What do you think of that! A junco nesting on the ground!”
“Where else would he nest here?” Lou laughed. “But juncos are winter birds, I thought.”
“Well, ain’t this winter weather enough for you to-day?” said Art.
“The top of Washington is said to be about the climate of Labrador,” Mr. Rogers put in. “That’s why some juncos always spend the summer here instead of going farther north.”
Lou was watching the pretty gray and white bird, as it hopped excitedly over the rocks, almost invisible sometimes against the bare gray granite, and in the whitish mist. “That junco is protectively colored on these rocks, all right,” he said. “But gee, he looks kind of lonely way up here!”
“Lonely!” exclaimed Frank. “I must say, this whole place is the most desolate looking thing I ever saw--nothing but big hunks of granite piled every which way, and no sun and no sky and no earth below you. I feel kind of as if we were the only people in the whole world.”
“So do I,” said Peanut. “I like it, though! Way up in the clouds above everybody--not a sound but the win----”
Just at that moment, seemingly from the gray cloud over their heads, rang out the call of a bugle!
Everybody stopped short, and exclaimed, “What’s that?”
“We aren’t up to the top yet,” said Mr. Rogers. “Somebody must be coming down.”
“Hello, yourself!” yelled Peanut, at the top of his lungs.
There was a sharp toot on the bugle, and as the Scouts moved forward up the trail, they presently saw dim figures above them, moving down. A moment later and the parties met. The newcomers were five men, with packs and poles. One of them had a bugle slung from his shoulder.
“Is Miss Alice Brown in your party?” they called as soon as they came in sight.
“Here I am,” the girl said. “What is it?”
She had gone white again, and hung on Rob’s arm.
“We’re looking for you, that’s all,” said the five men, as the parties met. “Is your companion here?”
“I’m here--we’re both here, thanks to these boys and their leader,” the man replied. “How did you know we were coming up?”