This was well meant, and probably sound advice, but it alienated Tappan. He had really liked this hearty-voiced stranger. Tappan thought moodily of his slowly ingrowing mind, of the narrowness of his soul. He was past interest in his fellow men. He lived with a dream. The only living creature he loved was a lop-eared, lazy burro, growing old in contentment. Nevertheless that night Tappan shared one of his two blankets.
In the morning the gray dawn broke, and the sun rose without its brightness of gold. There was a haze over the blue sky. Thin, swift-moving clouds scudded up out of the southwest. The wind was chill, the forest shaggy and dark, the birds and squirrels were silent.
“Wal, you’ll break camp to-day,” asserted Blade.
“Nope. I’ll stick it out yet a while,” returned Tappan.
“But, man, you might get snowed in, an’ up hyar thet’s serious.”
“Ahuh! Well, it won’t bother me. An’ there’s nothin’ holdin’ you.”
“Tappan, it’s four days’ walk down out of this woods. If a big snow set in, how’d I make it?”
“Then you’d better go out over the Rim,” suggested Tappan.
“No. I’ll take my chance the other way. But are you meanin’ you’d rather not have me with you? Fer you can’t stay hyar.”
Tappan was in a quandary.