It was well he did so. Before them a long, high mountain stretched across their way, like a giant caterpillar. No notch cut through its rugged side, to give an easy way to the valley beyond. Only by climbing directly over the rugged monster could the two boys reach the snug little valley on its far side, where they expected to find the trout teeming tinder the dark pines. Old Ironsides was the rocky barrier that confronted them. Even Stone Mountain was not more rugged and rocky. Like Stone Mountain it seemed to be a mammoth rock pile. Rocks of every size and description covered its steep slope. Mostly the mountain was shaded by a good stand of second-growth timber; but in places there were vast areas of rounded stones, like flattish heaps of potatoes, that for acres covered the soil of the hill so deeply as to prevent all plant growth. Old Ironsides could have been called Stone Mountain as appropriately as its neighbor, for truly it was rock-ribbed. But the stones on its slopes, unlike those of Stone Mountain, contained a small percentage of iron. Hence its name. The nearer slope of this hill was as dry as it was stony. Not a spring or the tiniest trickle of water wet its rocky side for miles. But part way down the farther slope a splendid stream gushed forth among the rocks. It was this spring, or the stream issuing from it, that Charley and Lew hoped to reach before they made their camp for the night. Thanks to the work of the forest rangers in clearing the fire trail, it looked as though the two boys would reach their goal before dark. Could they have gone straight up the slope of Old Ironsides, they would have come almost directly to the spring itself. But the grade was far too steep to permit that. They would have to zigzag up the hill and find the stream after they topped the crest. Because of the peculiar formation of the land below this spring, the water did not run directly down the hill toward the bottom, but flowed off to one side and made its way diagonally down the slope. At the bottom of the fire trail Lew and Charley sat down and rested for five minutes. Then they began their difficult climb upward. And difficult it was. There was no semblance of a path. The way led over jagged masses of rock, through dense little stands of trees, and among growths that were hard to penetrate because of their very thinness; for where the stand was sparse the trees had many low limbs to catch and trip and pull at those who sought to pass through. There were great areas of bare stones to be crossed--stones rounded and weathered by the elements through thousands of years, and finally heaped together like flattish piles of pumpkins on a barn floor. Acres and acres were covered by these great deposits of rounded, lichened rocks.