Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/307

Rh fir and spruce wood, thirty feet high, though it was but the limit of trees there. On our way we found the Arnica mollis (recently begun to bloom), a very fragrant yellow-rayed flower by the side of the brook, also half way up the ravine. The Alnus viridis was a prevailing shrub all along this stream, seven or eight feet high near our camp. Near the snow it was dwarfish, and still in flower, but in fruit only below; had a glossy, roundish, wrinkled, green, sticky leaf. Also a little Ranunculus abortivus by the brook, in bloom. Our camp was opposite a great slide on the south, apparently a quarter of a mile wide, with the stream between us and it, and I resolved, if a great storm should occur, that we would flee to higher ground northeast. The little pond by our side was perfectly clear and cool, without weeds, and the meadow by it was dry enough to sit down in. When I looked up casually toward the crescent of snow, I would mistake it for the sky, a white glowing sky or cloud, it was so high, while the dark earth or mountain side above it passed for a dark cloud.

In the course of the afternoon, we heard, as we thought, a faint shout, and it occurred to me that B, for whom I had left a note at the Glen House, might possibly be looking for me, but soon Wentworth decided that it must be a