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.