After a cold luncheon of sliced boiled ham and baker's bread, he
returned to the cove, where he idled away the afternoon under the
shade of tall cedar trees whose branches came down to the ground,
forming impenetrable pyramids of green.

Stretched out on the short buffalo-grass he watched the white flecks
follow one another across the sky; he observed the shadows
lengthening from the base of the western arm of the horseshoe till
they threatened to swallow up him and his bright speck of world; he
looked languidly after the flights of birds, and grinned as he saw
the hawks dart into round holes in the granite wall not much larger
than their bodies--those mysterious holes perforating the precipice,
seemingly bored there by a giant auger.

"Go to bed, pards," he called to the hawks. "I reckon it's time
for me, too!" He got up--the sun had disappeared behind the
mountain. He stretched himself, lifting his arms high above his
head and slowly drawing his fists to his shoulder, his elbows
luxuriously crooked. "One thing I got," he observed, "is room,
plenty! Well--" he started toward the divide for his upward climb,
"I've lived a reasonable long life; I am forty-five; but I do think
that since I laid down under that tree, I have thought of everything
I ever done or said since I was a kid. Guess I'll save the future
for another afternoon--and after that, the Lord knows what I'm going
to do with my brain, it's that busy."

The next day he began assorting the contents of his granite home,
moving to the task with conscientious slowness, stopping a dozen
times to make excursions into the outside world. By diligent