He seized an ax, and for the first time in seven months his muscles responded to the swing of it.

And Ericksen, old as his years in the way of the north, whistled loudly and rumbled a bit of crude song through his beard as he lighted a fire, knowing the medicine of the big open was getting its hold on Alan again.

To Alan it was like coming to the edge of home once more.

It seemed an age, an infinity, since he had heard the sputtering of bacon in an open skillet and the bubbling of coffee over a bed of coals with the mysterious darkness of the timber gathering in about him.
He loaded his pipe after his chopping, and sat watching Olaf as he mothered the half-baked bannock loaf.

It made him think of his father.