“You are nearly 4,000 feet up now, remember,” Mr. Rogers reminded him, “and they are dwarfed by the storms.” They came presently out of this dim bit of primeval forest into a growth composed almost exclusively of spruce. It was thirty feet high at first, but the path was very steep, and growing rocky, and in five minutes the spruces had shrunk in height to ten feet. The boys scented the summit and began to hurry. They struck a level place, and from it, in gaps between the stunted spruces, they began to get hints of the view. A quick final scramble, and they found themselves on the north peak. Peanut was leading. His clothes were dry now, except for a new soaking of perspiration, and his spirits high. Rob was right on his heels. The rest heard their shouts, and a second later stood beside them on a big flat rock, above the spruces which were only three or four feet tall here, and looked out upon the most wonderful view they had ever beheld. It made them all silent for a moment. Right at their feet, on the opposite side from which they had come up, the mountain dropped away in an almost sheer precipice for a thousand feet. At the bottom of that precipice was a perfectly level plateau, covered with forest, and apparently two miles long by half a mile wide, with a tiny lake, Lonesome Lake, at one end. Beyond it the mountain again fell away precipitously into an unseen gorge. From out of that gorge, on the farther side, rose the massive wall of Lafayette, Lincoln, Haystack and Liberty, four peaks which are almost like one long mountain with Lafayette, at the northern end, the highest point, a thousand feet higher than the boys. The whole side of this long rampart is so steep that great landslides have scarred it, and the last thousand feet of it is bare rock. It looked to the boys tremendously big, and the one blue mountain beyond it, to the east, which was high enough to peep over seemed very high indeed--Mount Carrigain. Peanut drew in his breath with a whistle. Lou sighed. “That’s the biggest thing I ever saw,” he said. Then he added, “And the most beautiful!” To the southeast, below Mount Liberty at the end of the big rock rampart, the boys could see off to the far horizon, over a billow of blue mountains like the wave crest of a gigantic sea--the Sandwich range, with the sharp cone of Chocorua as its most prominent peak. Facing due south, they could see, close to them, the south peak of Kinsman, perhaps half a mile away, across a saddle which was much deeper than it had looked from the base. Beyond the south peak was Moosilauke, seeming very close, and on top of it they could now see the Summit House. To the west, they looked down the slope up which they had climbed, to the valley, where the houses looked like specks, and then far off to the Green Mountains of Vermont. Peanut grew impatient. “Come on, fellers,” he cried. “This ain’t the top. What are we waiting here for?” “Oh, let us see the view, Peanut,” said Rob. “What’s your rush?”