And, meanwhile, he was repairing his boots, and doctoring Baree's feet, bruised and sore by their travel over the shale of the mountain tops.
He thought that he had experienced the depths of loneliness after leaving the Missioner.

But here it was a much larger thing.

This night, as he sat under the stars and a great white moon, with Baree at his feet, it engulfed him; not in a depressing way, but awesomely.

It was not an unpleasant loneliness, and yet he felt that it had no limit, that it was immeasurable.

It was as vast as the mountains that shut him in.
Somewhere, miles to the east of him now, was Kio.