“Well, now I’ll tell you about the bugle,” the speaker went on. “When I was in college a chap roomed next to me who could punt a football farther than anybody I ever knew----” “How far?” asked Art. “Well, I’ve seen him cover seventy yards,” was the answer. “Some punt!” cried Peanut. “Did that make you buy a bugle?” “Say, who’s telling the story?” the man said. “No, it didn’t make me buy a bugle, but this chap who could punt so far bought a cornet. What do you suppose he bought a cornet for?” “I can’t imagine why _anybody_ should buy a cornet,” put in one of the other men. “Shut up, Tom,” said the bugler. “Well, he bought a cornet so he could learn to play it, and after he had learned to play it (keeping everybody in the dormitory from studying while he learned, too!), he spent a summer vacation in the Rocky Mountains, and carried that cornet up to the highest peaks that he could climb, and played it. He learned to play it just for that--just for the joy of hearing horn music float out into the great spaces of the sky. Also, he made echoes with it against the cliffs while he was climbing up. After that summer he never played it again.” “Why didn’t he see how far he could punt a football from the top of Pike’s Peak?” Peanut grinned. “He used up all his breath playing the cornet, and couldn’t blow up the ball,” said the man. Lou wasn’t taking this story as a joke, however. “And you brought your bugle up here, to play it from the top of Washington?” he asked. “I think that’s fine. Gee, I wish you’d go out and play taps before we go to bed!” The man looked at Lou keenly. “So _you_ understand!” he said. “These Philistines with me don’t, and your young friend Peanut there doesn’t. They have no music in their souls, have they? You and I will go outside presently, and play taps to the circumambient atmosphere.” “Some language,” snickered Peanut. “What we’ll need isn’t taps, though, but reveille to-morrow.” “Cheer up, you’ll get that all right,” the man laughed. They all sat for a while discussing the day’s adventure, and planning for the next day, if it was clear. The five men were going down over the Davis Path, and as that path leads along Boott Spur, the Scouts decided to go with them, leaving them at the end of the spur, the Scouts to descend for the night into Tuckerman’s Ravine, while the others kept on southwest, over the Giant’s Stairs, to the lower end of Crawford Notch. “But we want to visit the Lakes of the Clouds first,” said the Scout Master. “We scarcely got a peep at ’em to-day.” “Suits us,” said the man called Tom. “We’ll have time, if we start early. I’d like to see the Alpine garden myself.” “And now for taps,” cried the bugler. He and Lou got up, and went out-of-doors. The rest followed, but the first pair slipped away quickly into the cloud, going down the carriage road till the lamp of the coach house was invisible.