Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/106

 The runner, a vigorous, sunny-faced lad of seventeen or so, grinned engagingly as he still rubbed the back of his head.

"Got a bump like a pumpkin as it is! But I didn't have time to look and see! Please tell a fellow how you manage that when you are coming down lickettysplit?" He sucked his slightly bleeding palm as he discovered that the broken wood had torn it.

"You just see," began the climber, suddenly realizing how entirely it was a matter of long and almost unconscious training of eye to do this; how subconsciously one would take in every aspect around; how he himself would note without awareness, no matter how fast he chanced to be coming down, whether a branch or sapling to which he trusted his weight was sound; how his foot avoided, as if of its own volition, a loose-looking stone. That habit of the swift, appraising glance, no matter how intent his mind was on other things, had long ago become second nature—or as the Duke of Wel-