Supper over, it was not many minutes before the girls sought their beds.  They were more tired than at any time on their journey, for this had been a day long to be remembered, the fifteenth.  They would post it up in their rooms to look at every day through the winter and think of the excitement, the peril and the joys that marked that day of their vacation.

The girls rolled themselves in their blankets, Indian fashion, as before mentioned.  They were beginning to enjoy this way of sleeping, wrapped up like mummies, feeling warm and comfortable in the soft blankets.  No one who has not tried this method of sleeping in the open in cool weather can have the slightest idea of the blissfulness of it.  Of course, if there are insects they will find one.  There were insects on Chocorua and they found the Meadow-Brook Girls, creeping over their faces, getting into their hair, but failing to find their way under the tightly rolled blankets.  The girls were as wholly oblivious to the insects as to the chattering squirrels that leaped from one rolled figure to another, then off up the rocks, only to return again and take up their game of “leap” over the sleeping Meadow-Brook Girls.

The day had no more than dawned when Tommy was awake, unrolling herself, but taking the precaution to see where the unrolling would land her.  She had not forgotten her experience at Sokoki Leap, or the fall from the shelf into space.  This ground was fairly level and there were no jumping-off places, except the Slide.  She was not rolling in that direction.  Freeing herself, Tommy shook Margery awake, then began calling her companions.  Janus sat up, took account of the time and lay back for another nap.

“Januth ith taking hith beauty thleep,” observed Tommy wisely.

Margery complained at being called so early; but when Tommy told her they were going to skip stones down the Slide, Buster was all eagerness to be up and at it.  The girls did not even take the time to wash their faces, but ran to the Slide and gazed timidly down its slippery way.

“Come on.  Let’th get thome thtoneth,” urged Grace.  She uttered a merry shout as the first round stone rolled down the Slide, bumping from side to side, finally landing with a splash in the pond, sending up a little white geyser of spray.  Buster also began to take a more active interest in life.  She, too, shouted as she sent a fair-sized boulder spinning down the incline.

“My, what a racket!” cried Jane.  “Harriet, shall we go join the game?”

“I am getting ready as fast as I can.  You had better remain quiet for a time yet, Hazel.”

Hazel said she would.  Miss Elting also lay gazing up at the sky, following with her eyes the flight of the birds, many of which, high in the air, were soaring toward the east to meet the coming of the day.

Harriet picked up a boulder on her way to the Slide, and, reaching there, sent it spinning with the wrist movement peculiar to bowlers.  The boulder skipped some rods out into the pond far below them before it sank under the water and disappeared, leaving a white trail in its wake.