He smoked a while before speaking.
"Out there in the mountains, Nance, I thought about these things a long time--the years went before I knew it.

At first I stayed with this healing chap, only after a while he started back to teach again and they found him dead.

He believed he had a mission to save the world, and that he would live until he accomplished it.

But there he was, dead for want of a little food.

Then I stayed a long time alone--until I began to feel that I, too, had something for the world.