They had been grim and business-like in appearance.

But then the Cossacks were that, too, though in an entirely different way.
"I wish I had someone along!" he thought, at last.
That was when the dawn was beginning to break.

Off to the east the sun was beginning to rise, and in the grey half light before full day there was something stark and gaunt about the country.

Before him smoke was rising, probably from a village.

But that sign of human habitation, that certain indication that people were near, somehow only made him feel lonelier than he had been in the starlit darkness of the night.