“Well, you got a fine day for the mountain,” the watchman said. “Go see the Pool and the Flume first, and then just keep right up the head of the Flume. You’ll hit the path.” “How long will it take us to make Lafayette?” asked Rob. “Six hours, I guess,” he answered. “Easy,” said they. “Goodbye.” They had turned away before Art and Peanut remembered to tip off the watchman about the third thief, Jim, at the Profile stables. Then they started once more. The party now crossed the road, and entered a path through the woods, marked “The Pool.” After a short walk through dense woods, they descended rapidly through a break in a cliff wall, for nearly a hundred and fifty feet, and stood beside the strangest little lake they had ever beheld. It was about a hundred and fifty feet across, more or less circular in shape, and surrounded by high cliffs which made it seem like a pond at the bottom of a crater. The water, which was astonishingly clear, came into it at the upper end in the form of a cascade, and escaped not far from the boys through a fissure, or tiny cañon, in the rocks. “My, I’d like to swim in that! What a place to dive in!” cried Art. “How deep is it?” “About fifty feet, I believe,” said the Scout Master. “Looks a thousand,” said Peanut. “Come on, let’s all have one dive.” Rob felt of the water. “One would be about all you’d want,” he said. “Besides, we haven’t time.” The Scouts left the Pool reluctantly, climbed back up the cliff, and found the path to the Flume. This Flume, they soon discovered, resembled almost exactly the flume on Kinsman, save that the walls were higher and stood farther apart, and it was also longer. But the path to it was much more traveled, and there was a board walk built up through it beside the brook, so that it did not seem so wild nor impressive as the smaller flume on Kinsman. They soon passed through it, found the path up Liberty, and began to climb. As on all the White Mountains, the first part of the climb led through woods, and no views were to be had, neither of the summit ahead nor the valley behind. It was a steep path, too, much steeper than the Benton Trail up Moosilauke, though not so steep as the Beaver Brook Trail down which they had tumbled the day before. At first everybody was chattering gaily, and Peanut and Art were telling over again all their experiences of the night before. But gradually, as the sun mounted, as the trail grew still steeper and rockier, as their packs and blankets got heavier and hotter, conversation died out. Everybody was panting. Rob, who was pacemaker for the morning, would plod away, and then set his pack down to rest. The others rested when he did, and no oftener. Climbing began to be mechanical. Art consulted his watch and his pedometer. “That Appalachian guide book isn’t far from right,” he admitted to Mr. Rogers. “We aren’t making much over a mile an hour.”