But I tried to forget that terrible and hostile splendor; urged by a hope that gradually flickered and went out, I made a slow round of the village. At each cabin I paused, peering through the window or knocking at the unbolted door and entering; and at each cabin I sank an inch nearer despair. As yet, of course, I had had no proof that I was altogether abandoned--might there not still be some old man or woman, some winter-loving hunter or doughty watchman, who had been left behind until the tribe's return in the spring? But no man, woman or child stirred in the white spaces between the cabins; no man, woman or child greeted me in any of the huts.... All was bare as though untenanted for months; and here an empty earthen pan or kettle hanging on the wall, there a dozen unshelled nuts forgotten in a corner, yonder a half-burnt candle or a cracked water jug or discarded sandal, were the only tokens of recent human occupancy. It was but natural that I should feel most forlorn upon entering Yasma's cabin. How mournfully I gazed at the walls her eyes had beheld a short twenty-four hours before! and at a few scattered trifles that had been hers! My attention was especially caught by a little pink wildflower, shaped like a primrose, which hung drooping in a waterless jar; and the odd fancy came to me that this was like Yasma herself. Tenderly, urged by a sentiment I hardly understood, I lifted the blossom from the jar, pressed it against my bosom, and fastened it securely there. The outside world now seemed bright and genial enough. From above the eastern peaks the sun beamed generously upon the windless valley; and there was warmth in his rays as he put the snow to flight and sent little limpid streams rippling across the fields. But to me it scarcely mattered whether the sun shone or the gale dashed by. Now there was an irony in the sunlight, an irony I resented even as I should have resented the bluster of the storm. Yet, paradoxically, it was to sunlit nature that I turned for consolation, for what but the trees and streams and soaring heights could make me see with broader vision? Scornful of consequences, I plodded through the slushy ground to the woods; and roaming the wide solitudes, with the snow and the soggy brown leaves beneath and the almost denuded branches above, I came to look upon my problems with my first trace of courage. "This too will pass," I told myself, using the words of one older and wiser than I. And I pictured a time when these woods would be here, and I would not; pictured even a nearer time when I should roam them with laughter on my lips. What after all were a few months of solitude amid this magnificent world?