“----and out of the cloud, off southwest somewhere we suddenly heard a faint call for ‘Help!’ It sounded awfully strange, kind of weird-like, way up there in the clouds.” “Wonder if they’ve got the woman down by now?” said Frank. “Lucky that doctor and the other three men were hiking along here,” Lou put in, “or we’d have had to carry her to the railroad and then walk way back over the whole Gulf Side Trail again.” “Not me,” said Peanut. “I’d have kissed the mountains good-night, and got aboard the train myself.” “Where did you strike those four?” asked Rob. “They were at the hut when we first got there at two o’clock, waiting for the cloud to break,” said Mr. Rogers. “They came up Adams with us to see you fellows signal, for they said the cloud wouldn’t last long. Good trampers, they were, on their annual vacation up here. They know every path like a book.” The Scouts were discussing signaling and its uses, and Rob was saying that it made him tired to hear people say the Scouts were taught to be warlike, when signaling had proved so valuable that very day as a means of saving life in peace, instead of taking it in war--when steps were heard outside the hut, and a second later two men stood in the door. “Hello, any room?” they said. “Come in,” said the caretaker. The two men entered. They were rather elderly men, or at least middle aged, with gray hair; but both of them were tanned and rugged, the type you learn to recognize as the real trampers on the White Mountain trails. They made themselves at home at once, tossing their small packs into a corner. They had no blankets, but both of them carried botanical specimen cases. “Where from?” asked Mr. Rogers. “Jackson,” they said. “We came up Tuckerman’s yesterday to the Tip Top House, and spent this morning getting specimens on Bigelow Lawn. We’ve just come over the Gulf Side.” “Did you meet four men carrying an injured woman?” the boys asked. “Carrying her where?” “To the train.” “They were taking her along the West Side Trail, from Monticello Lawn, where she sprained her ankle,” Mr. Rogers added. “One of them went ahead to the summit to telephone.” “Oh, that explains it!” the two strangers said. “We met him just as we were turning out of the carriage road into the trail. He was going about ten miles an hour. And when we got up on Jefferson, we saw a train climbing the trestle, and wondered why.” “Hooray, she’s safe!” shouted Peanut. “Bet she never tries to climb in low shoes again, though.” Supper was now served, and the combined parties sat down to it. The boys told the newcomers of their day’s adventures, and Peanut suddenly shot out, “Say! Can _you_ tell me why it’s called the Six Husbands’ Trail?” One of the men laughed. “I surely can,” he said. “Well, for Heaven’s sake, do, then,” Rob said. “He’ll never be happy till he knows.”