30
The Heart of Monadnock
III.
On his first visit to Monadnock years ago, the Mountain-Lover had learned its first concrete lesson. Not yet wholly familiar with the winding trails that seemed innumerable, he delighted in wandering here and there to discover them and their many connections by himself. On a June morning of vivid blue and green and gold, crisp as only mountain air is ever crisp, he found himself loitering along one enticing little sun-spattered path after another under the Black Precipice. He had gotten onto the Tenderfoot trail and then in some fashion his meandering way had brought him to the Fairy Spring. It was a little emerald-lined grotto formed by a deep shelf at about the level of his eyes, with a roof of overhang-
