66 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER . 
loose, rounded black clouds with white spaces 
between them. Below them, impending over 
a belt of country about ten miles north of me, 
was a very long but narrow cloud, black as ink, 
with a clean-cut lower edge as straight as a level. 
From it forked lightning was playing downward. 
The outlines of the mountains were singularly 
clear. I could see, beginning at the right, the 
Presidential Range, the Crawford Notch, An¬ 
derson, Nancy, Lowell, the Carrigain Notch, 
Carrigain; and then, partly obscured by rain, 
the Franconia Mountains and the nearer heights 
of Tripyramid and its neighbors. Just over 
Tripyramid, reaching nearly to the zenith, was 
an opening in the clouds, a narrow space be¬ 
tween two storms. It was clear gold within, 
but hideous black profiles were outlined against 
it, as though the fiends of one storm were look¬ 
ing across it at their allied hosts in the second 
bank of clouds now hurrying upward from the 
southwest. 
Turning sharply to the right, I found and 
climbed the rough path leading up the rocks to 
the highest point on the peak. Three thousand 
feet below me, in that peaceful valley by the 
lake, was my home. I could just see its red 
roof among the trees. Wind ripples were chas¬ 
ing each other across the lake, marring its white 
surface. The lake is heart-shaped, and my cot- 
