He loved to fling himself down in an aspen-grove at the edge of a senaca, and there lie in that radiance like a veil of gold and purple and red, with the white tree-trunks striping the shade.

Always, whether there were breeze or not, the aspen-leaves quivered, ceaselessly, wonderfully, like his pulses, beyond his control.
Often he reclined against a mossy rock beside a mountain stream to listen, to watch, to feel all that was there, while his mind held a haunting, dark-eyed vision of a girl.

On the lonely heights, like an eagle, he sat gazing down into Paradise Park, that was more and more beautiful, but would never again be the same, never fill him with content, never be all and all to him.
Late in October the first snow fell.

It melted at once on the south side of the park, but the north slopes and the rims and domes above stayed white.
Dale had worked quick and hard at curing and storing his winter supply of food, and now he spent days chopping and splitting wood to burn during the months he would be snowed-in.

He watched for the dark-gray, fast-scudding storm-clouds, and welcomed them when they came.