“That’s a fine idea!” Art exclaimed. “You not only have your fire handy, and sheltered completely from the wind, but you get the full heat of it. Say, we must build a camp just like this when we get back!” “Somebody was here last night,” said Rob, inspecting the ashes in the stone fire pit. “Look, they are still wet. Soused their fire, all right.” “And left a bed of boughs--for two,” added Peanut, peeping into the shelter. “Let’s leave our stuff, so we’ll have first call on the cabin to-night,” somebody else put in. “Will it be safe, though?” “Sure,” the Scout Master said--“safe from people, anyhow. The folks who tramp up here are honest, I guess. But I don’t trust the hedgehogs too far. The last time I slept in Tuckerman’s, five or six years ago, two of us camped out on the shore of Hermit Lake, and the hedgehogs ate holes in our rubber ponchos while we slept.” “Say, you must have slept hard--and done some dreaming!” laughed Peanut. “Fact,” said Mr. Rogers; “cross my heart, hope to die!” “Well, then let’s hang our blankets over this string,” said Art, indicating a stout cord strung near the roof from the two sides of the shelter. They hung their blankets over the cord, stacked their packs in a corner, and set off up the trail toward the head wall of the ravine, nearly a mile away. A few steps brought them to a sight of Hermit Lake, a pretty little sheet of water which looked almost black, it was so shallow and clear, with dark leaf-mould forming the bottom. It was entirely surrounded by the dark spires of the mountain spruces, and held their reflections like a mirror, and behind them the reflections of the great rocky walls of the ravine sides, and then the blue of the sky. The path now began to ascend the inclined floor of the ravine, and the full grandeur of the spectacle burst upon the boys. Even Peanut was silent. It was the most impressive spot they had ever been in. To their left the cliffs shot up a thousand feet to Boott Spur, to their right they went up almost as high to the Lion’s Head. And directly in front of them, curved in a semicircle, like the wall of a stadium, and carved out of the solid rock of the mountain, was the great head wall, in the half shadow at its base a huge snow-bank glimmering white, on the tenth day of July. Above the snow-bank the rocks glistened and sparkled with hundreds of tiny water streams. All about, at the feet of the cliffs, and even down the floor of the ravine to the boys, lay piled up in wild confusion great heaps of rock masses, the debris hurled down from the precipitous walls by centuries of frost and storm. “It looks like a gigantic natural colosseum,” said Lou. “The head wall is curved just like the pictures of the Colosseum in our Roman history.” “Right-o,” cried Peanut. “Say, what a place to stage a gladiator fight, eh? Sit your audience all up on the debris at the bottoms of the cliffs.” “And have your gladiators come out from under the snow arch,” laughed Mr. Rogers.