"Here I hit the trail for yon blue notch and the land where the sun goes down.

So long." "Take care o' yourself, boy." "Come back soon," called Cora, and covered her face with her shawl in a world-old gesture of grief.
In the days that followed she thought of him as she saw him last, a minute fleck on the plain.

She thought of him when the rains fell, and prayed that he might not fall ill of fever or be whelmed by a stream.

He seemed so little and weak when measured against that mighty and merciless wall of snow.

Then when the cold white storms came and the plain was hid in the fury of wind and sleet, she shuddered and thought of him camped beside a rock, cold and hungry.