“I ought to add,” the Scout Master went on, “that W. B. Curtis and his companion, Allen Ormsby, the two men who died, would not have perished, probably, if they had turned back when they first saw threats of bad weather, as they were warned to do, instead of trying to keep on, or even if there had been a shelter hut, as there is now, on the long, bare, wind-swept col between Monroe and the summit cone of Washington. They tried to build a shelter under Monroe, and then left that to press on to the summit. Curtis didn’t quite get to the site of the present hut, but doubtless he would have if the hope of it had been there to spur him on. As it was, he evidently fell and injured himself, and Ormsby died some distance up the final cone, struggling in a mad attempt to get to the top and find aid for Curtis. He had fifty bruises on his body where the wind had blown him against the rocks. Curtis was thinly clad, and he was sixty years old. Two guides, descending, who met them on Pleasant, had warned them not to go on--that there was snow and terrible wind above; but they evidently didn’t realize at all what they were in for.” “Oh, well, we’ve got blankets, and you know the way,” cried Peanut. “What do we care? Guess we’ll ride out anything that can hit us in July!” The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a sharp “S-sh!” from Art, who was leading. The rest stopped short, and looked up the path in the direction of his pointing finger. There, right in the path fifty feet ahead, pecking away at the mould exactly like a hen in the barnyard, was a big brown partridge! The Scouts stole softly toward it, expecting every moment to see it rise and go whirring off through the woods. It did stop feeding, raised its head to look at them, and then hopped up the bank beside the path and began scratching again. “Good gracious, is it a tame partridge?” Art whispered in astonishment. But his astonishment was still greater when, a moment later, the whole party stood in the path not six feet from the bird, and saw that it was one of a small covey of six. Four of them were feeding on the ground, and making soft, pretty _coots_, like hens on a hot summer day. Two were perched lazily on the low branch of a hemlock. They paid no attention to the Scouts. “Gee!” said Frank, “you could knock ’em over with a stick! Let’s have partridge for dinner.” “Nix!” said Art. “It’s out of season. Besides, I wouldn’t kill anything so tame. I guess they’re not hunted much here. I never saw ’em tame like this before in my life. Down home they’d have been a mile away by now.” The birds looked up at the sound of his voice, and moved a few feet farther off. Then they began feeding again, the hens following the cock in a sort of procession. “They certainly are pretty,” Rob said. “I didn’t know a partridge was so pretty. Take a picture of ’em, Frank.” “Not sun enough in under those trees,” Frank sighed. “I wish I could.”