He pushed on at top speed. Charley hung close at his heels. Neither boy
said a word, each saving his breath for the task in hand; for with the
packs on their backs even a down-hill trail was not easy.

"We can go scout pace here," said Lew over his shoulder, and suiting his
action to his words, he broke into a trot. Fifty steps he went at that
gait, then walked fifty. Then he ran fifty more. So they went down the
mountain in a mere fraction of the time it had taken them to ascend. But
long before they reached the bottom, Lew dropped back to a steady walk.

"We've got to save our wind for the climb up Old Ironsides," he said over
his shoulder.

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