Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/89

 every minutest object was miraculously clear in entrancing contrast with the angry purples of the advancing storms which were surging from the far background.

The three summer tempests were racing for Monadnock, always a storm-lure. The observer cast an experienced eye at the wild contestants in the mad race and then he considered his own downward path. Impossible to reach shelter. The storm would be on him in—say ten minutes. In any event he infinitely preferred the open rocks to the woods. He went down on the Monte Rosa trail for perhaps an hundred feet or so and chose for his reserved seat in the spectacle a great mass of rock that faced southwest, and the other side of which by an acute angle faced east so that when the storm broke he could find on that side some shelter from the cutting west wind that brought the rain. What the force of that wind could be, he knew quite well.

He pulled his soft hat well over on his head and sat down on a little natural seat