“Better get out some biscuit or something to munch on, for we shan’t find a place where we can cook a meal until we get nearly to the top.  We’ll have to rest hanging on by our eyelids after this,” declared Janus.

“No more mountain climbing for me,” declared Margery.

“This is nothing,” chuckled the guide.  “Wait until you climb Mt.  Washington.”

“Wait until I do!” nodded Margery with emphasis.

“That is to be our next,” Miss Elting informed them.  “By the time we have finished that I think we shall be seasoned mountain climbers.”

“Yeth.  And we’ll have the habit so badly that we’ll be climbing telephone poleth every day when we get home,” averred Tommy.  “I withh my father could thee me now.  He wouldn’t thay hith little girl wath lathy, would he?”

Janus got up and walked out where he could look about him.  He stood stroking his whiskers reflectively, glancing critically at the rocks above; then along a narrow, barely indicated trail around the side of the mountain.  He turned on his heel and returned to where his party lay stretched out on the rocks.  There were rents in their clothing, their boots were scratched and cut from contact with sharp points of rocks, and the faces of the Meadow-Brook Girls were red and perspiring.

“I reckon we’ll go around another way,” decided Janus.  “It’s too steep here.  You’ll ruin your clothes.  No need of it at all.  You will get just as much fun out of the roundabout way as by climbing straight up.”

At first the girls protested that they did not wish to take the easier way, but when he assured them it was just as hazardous, they were satisfied.

“This new way we will see some scenery that is scenery, and you’ll have a chance to look at it, which you wouldn’t have in the straight-up climb.  You see, you’d be too busy hanging on.  I wanted to show you the ‘Slide’ anyway,” he added.

“What ith the ’Thlide’?” questioned Tommy.

“You will see when you get to it; one of the curiosities of Chocorua, and a lively one.  They say the Indians used it when in a hurry to get down the mountain or to escape from their enemies.  But, mind you, I don’t expect any of you young ladies to follow the example of the Indians.  Now, shall we move along?”

Interested in this new proposal, the girls sprang up, eagerly announcing their readiness to push on.  Janus led the way to the right, instead of following the perpendicular trail.  The former trail led them around a jutting point of rock, then over boulders, irregular slabs and crags, obliging them to pick their way with caution and cling to the life line.

They were now following a sort of spiral; for, though the party seemed to be encircling the mountain, they were rising gradually toward the blue dome of the summit.  Here and there a mountain bird, dislodged from its perch, would hurl itself out into space, giving the girls a start, and threatening, for the moment, their equilibrium.  But they did much better than the guide had hoped for.  Greatly to his relief, he was not obliged to go to the rescue of a Meadow-Brook Girl that day.