Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/110

 anyone so! How many important operations have I seen go to smash because a critical detail was entrusted to some one who was really rotten at the core, and no one had looked closely enough to see? That investment of mine last winter. Served me right! Looked sound—good returns, apparently—but I should have investigated myself and then I would have seen the conditions were not as represented; only true on the surface. I should have given that suspicious weak spot in the affair attention enough to know it was really rottenness—when I thought it an unimportant detail! Yes, served me right. One thought of this law of the trail would have saved me. Rotten branches indeed! Why should I do in life among important crises what I should not dream of doing up on the mountain? Loose stones! Decayed wood! Dead branches! And unseeing eyes!"

He had come out beyond the Coffee Pot Camp and the calm stretch of the mountain was before him. He looked up musingly at