Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/77

 have been minutes or hours that the thinker lay there against the sun-warmed rock, with his eyes now closed, feeling new life in every relaxed nerve. After a time he was on longer thinking; he was floating out on a sea of peace.

He opened his eyes slowly at last and drew a long breath as of one made over. So still had he lain that the annoyed junco fluttering in and out of the dwarfed spruce near by had at last concluded he was but a long stone and had ceased scolding. The thinker whistled to the downy-breasted little creature that cocked a startled head at him and flew chattering away. He stretched himself and stood up, eyeing the almost unused trail that lay across from Monte Rosa to the long, gradual descent of the Marlborough shoulder, that here formed his horizon line to the north. This trail wanders along, rising and falling into one little ravine after another; so little-used that last summer he