He had walked all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and now it was night again.Still blowing. Still snowing. Still bitterly cold. And still he had found no place he could rest and nurse his wound.

 

Now and then through the driving snow, he could see the outline of a tall dark forest just ahead. Shelter. Perhaps he could find a hole in a tree trunk, or a little hollow among the roots

 

where he could curl up out of the wind. Even that would be a blessing - to be out of the howling biting wind that plagued him like a wicked child.

 

Just as he made his way up the last hill before the forest, the wind died, the snow stopped falling, and the night sky looked down at him with cold, clear eyes, as big as all eternity. For the first time in a long time he could open his eyes and leave them open. The forest all around him was even bigger than he'd imagined. And scarier. Most ofthe trees were so tall they seemed to be poking stars in the great, dark dome of night. Perhaps there were no little hollows in such a great forest.

 

Hubbard began to cry - big, soft, warn tears that trickled down his cheeks and froze on the end of his nose.

 

At least the gale had stopped. Now he could hear the snow crunch beneath his good foot. He could hear the wind dragging its long train of secrets through the tops of the trees: "You'll never know where I've been," it seemed to say. "You'll never go where I've been.”