Boy Scouts in the White Mountains: The Story of a Long HikeEaton, Walter Prichard
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Boy Scouts in the White Mountains: The Story of a Long Hike
Eaton, Walter Prichard
Boy Scouts -- Juvenile fiction; Hiking -- Juvenile fiction; White Mountains (N.H. and Me.) -- Juvenile fiction
Peanut tied a white towel to the end of each staff, and standing as
high on the topmost rock as he could, held them out. Against the blue
sky, on the peak of Adams, the two boys saw two tiny white specks break
out in answer. They were so far away that it was very hard to follow
them, to keep the two apart.
“Oh, for a pair of field-glasses!” Rob cried. “Do you think they can
get us?”
“If we can get them, they can,” Peanut answered. “Here goes!”
“Woman hurt, bring help, Gulf Side,” he signaled, very slowly.
They both watched, breathless, for the answer, but it was impossible to
make out whether they were understood or not.
“Here, you take one flag, and stand up here; you’re taller,” Peanut
said, jumping off the rock. “I’ll stand below you. That’ll separate the
two more. Now, again!”
Very slowly, holding each letter a long time, and running a few steps
to left or right with their flags, they signaled once more, the same
message.
This time they saw the answering flags change position. “Good old Lou,
he’s done the same trick,” Peanut cried. “Look, I can read it now!”
“I can’t,” said Rob.
“Well, I can----G-o-t-y-o-u! Got you!” Peanut shouted. “They’ll be
here! How long will it take ’em?”
“Oh, half an hour, I should say,” Rob answered. “Come back, now. Maybe
the woman has fainted again.”
“Gee, why do people try to climb mountains when they don’t know how?”
said Peanut, as they descended again toward the little group of figures
below them.
“Help is coming!” they cried, as they drew near.
“Well, you boys were certainly sent by Providence!” the man exclaimed.
They all made the injured woman as comfortable as they could while they
waited. There was still a little water left in the Scouts’ canteens,
and they made a cold bandage around her ankle, which Rob decided was
not broken. Then there was nothing to do but sit and wait. It seemed
hours, though it was really less than thirty minutes, when over the
east shoulder of Jefferson, where the Gulf Side Trail skirts the
precipitous wall down into the Great Gulf, came the rescue party,
almost on the run--Mr. Rogers, Frank, Lou, and four men.
One of these men, it speedily turned out, was a doctor, and he took
charge at once, while Rob watched him admiringly, for Rob was going to
be a doctor, too. He felt of the injured ankle carefully, while the
patient winced with pain.
“No broken bones,” he said, “just a bad sprain. You should wear stout,
high boots for such work, madam.”
(“Just what we told her,” Art whispered.)
“And now,” the doctor added, “she’s got to be carried to the nearest
point on the railroad. Jim, you start along now to the summit house,
and telephone down for a train to be sent up immediately. We’ll get her
to the track at the point where the West Side Trail crosses, just below
the Gulf tank.”
“How far is it?” asked the Scouts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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