Winter came with its treacherous winds, and Carston’s ranch was more desolate. Of Nat-u-ritch’s unspoken devotion to him there was no doubt in Jim’s mind, and the temptation to take her proffered companionship into his lonely life rose strong within him. After Cash Hawkins’s death, Jim, had he cared for the life, might have been a leader in the Long Horn saloon, but a bar-room hero was not the role that he wished to play. His own men—Grouchy, Andy, and Shorty—openly expressed their disappointment to Big Bill at the boss’s indifference to the position he might exert as a power in Maverick, and even Big Bill only vaguely understood Jim’s unappreciative attitude. He often watched Jim smoking his pipe and peering into the heart of the embers that glowed on the hearth, and as he saw the careworn face Bill’s great heart ached with sympathy for him. But Jim, as he realized the difficulties of the fight in which he was involved, only clinched his fists the tighter and accomplished the work of three men in his day’s toil. At these times the physical drain on him was so great that there was no opportunity left in which to realize the biting ache of his loneliness. So one bleak day succeeded another, with the slim, mute figure of the Indian girl ever crossing his path. The early spring brought with it a sudden melting of the snow-capped hills and the ice-covered pools. The cattle grew more troublesome. They seemed harder to control, or else the boys were more indifferent to their disappearance. Big Bill had gone away on a deal for new cattle, so Jim’s energies were redoubled. One day as he rode across the plains searching for a lost herd that had wandered towards Jackson’s Hole, the longing that the awakening spring had brought with it grew more insistent. Life surely held for him possibilities greater than this, he told himself. He resolved, on Bill’s return, to arrange with him to sell the place. He could not conquer the craving for the old haunts of civilization that took possession of him. He closed his eyes to shut out the endless stretch of prairie. Lost in his dream to escape from his lonely life and to take part again in the affairs of men of his own class, he failed to notice the small pony that followed him carrying Nat-u-ritch.