"Gee! I'm glad I've got a cave the wind can't monkey with, to winter in," he congratulated himself fatuously once, when the little boxlike building shook in the blast. That night the wind slept, and the mountain lay hushed after the tumult. But the clouds hung heavy and gray at dark, and in the morning they had not drifted on. It was as though the mountain tops had corralled all the clouds in the country and held them penned like sheep over the valleys. With the gray sunrise came the wind again, and howled and trumpeted and bullied the harassed forests until dark. And then, with dark came the stinging slap of rain upon the windows, and pressed Jack's loneliness deep into the soul of him. "They'll be shutting up this joint for the winter," he told himself many times that night, half hopefully, half regretfully. "They won't pay a man to watch forests that are soaking wet. I guess my job's done here." The next morning a thin white blanket of snow fresh sifted from the clouds lay all over the summit and far down the sides. Beyond its edges the rain beat steadily upon the matted leaves and branches. Surely his job was ended with that storm, Jack kept telling himself, while he stared out at his drenched world capped with white. It was the nearest he had ever been to snow, except once or twice when he had gone frolicking up Mount Wilson with snowballing parties. He scooped up handfuls of it with a dreary kind of gleefulness--dreary because he must be gleeful alone--he made tracks all around just for the novelty of it; he snowballed the rocks. He would soon go into a different kind of exile, without rules and regulations to hamper his movements; without seventy-five dollars a month salary, too, by the way! But he would have the freedom of the mountains. He would be snug and safe in his cave over there, and Marion would climb up to meet him every day or so and bring him magazines and news of the outside world. And he would fill in the time hunting, and maybe do a little prospecting, as he had vaguely hinted to the man who brought his supplies. It would not be so bad. But his job did not end with that storm. The storm passed after a few days of dreary drizzle in the lower country and howling winds over the crest and a few hours of daytime snowfall that interested Jack hugely because he had never in his life before seen snow actually falling out of the sky. Then the sun came out and dried the forests, and Supervisor Ross said nothing whatever about closing the lookout station for the winter.