I asked him why, and he said, "Short cut." Then a wind crept out of the north, and with it the snow.

We were climbing low ridges and dodging into hollows, and when the snow spread a white veil over the land, I looked at Frosty out of the tail of my eye, wondering if he did not wish he had kept to the road--trail, it is called in the rangeland.
If he did, he certainly kept it to himself; he went on climbing hills and setting the brake at the top, to slide into a hollow, and his face kept its inscrutable calm; whatever he thought was beyond guessing at.
When he had watered the horses at a little creek that was already skimmed with ice, and unwrapped a package of sandwiches on his knee and offered me one, I broke loose.

Silence may be golden, but even old King Midas got too big a dose of gold, once upon a time, if one may believe tradition.
"I hate to butt into a man's meditations," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "but there's a limit to everything, and you've played right up to it.

You've had time, my friend, to remember all your sins and plan enough more to keep you hustling the allotted span; you've been given an opportunity to reconstruct the universe and breed a new philosophy of life.

For Heaven's sake, _say_ something!" Frosty eyed me for a minute, and the muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched.