A sheet iron stove of ancient make, a cupboard with some tin dishes, salt pork, the end of a loaf of bread, a table against one wall made of a packing box. Two other boxes for seats, an army cot with gray blankets, and an old decrepit couch of the kind known as a “sofa,” that he had bought from a settler about to move. Its decrepit springs were bursting forth like fallen soldiers from the old Brussels carpet covering, faded and long since worn beyond all thought of its original pattern.

“Sometime when I’m wealthy, I’ll get you a new cover.” He had promised it again and again when he had stretched his weary form upon its humpy, inadequate dimensions. Well, now he was wealthy enough to buy him a new couch with great, deep leather cushions to build him a palace and furnish it throughout, and yet he found his heart turning wistfully toward a new cover for that poor old couch, the only real longing he had allowed himself during these barren years. He felt shy about going out into the world and hunting luxury for himself. In fact, he had no standards of luxury. All he really longed for was home and somebody to care. His childhood home had been plain and simple, but it had been full of love, and it was home. And you couldn’t buy home!

He had meant to build a fireplace someday in his shack, out of native cobblestones, and spread his big bear rug, the first trophy of his western prowess, before it. Draw up the couch with its bright new cover, sit and stare into the leaping flames as they bit into a great burning log, and heal his broken young heart. Now in his thoughts, the couch seemed to rise in reproach at him as he rode along. He had sold it, couch, cabin, possibilities, and all, and was going away forever!

He had planned to bring water down from the mountain spring above his shack and install a rude water system, to plant a garden with vegetables and maybe a few of the flowers his mother used to love, just for remembrance, someday when he got time. He had meant to make the mountainside lovely, too, and his dreams had even included a better dwelling there someday. But now that could never be. He had sold it all, and before long ugly, disfiguring oil wells would spring up everywhere over his hillside site that he had selected so carefully.

Well, he was rich anyway, and there wasn’t a soul to miss him. He had gone alone these ten long years, eaten and slept alone much of the time except for a few months when old Luke was with him, Luke a wanderer on the face of the earth dropping down for a little while, helping him work. But poor Luke was gone. Killed in a drunken brawl.

Even the dog that had companioned with him during the first few years of his exile had been wounded so badly by a wild steer one day that he had to be shot. There wasn’t even a dog to care that he was leaving. No one out there in the West to care that he was not coming back.

The moon was shining when he reached his shack. He could see its silver light on the opposite hillside. His eye lingered on the wide expanse of sky; the purple mountains; the dark, plumy woods; the river winding like a silver thread in the valley. Would he someday be homesick for all this quietness as he had longed for his home when he came out here?

Off there to the right was where the sun rose, bursting through bars of crimson. Off there to the left was where it set, leaving tatters of purple and gold behind it. And there by the top of that tallest tree was the spot he watched when a storm was coming up and the tops of the tall pines bent with the wind. He sighed deeply and turned to his horse, touching the soft, old nose with a lingering caress like a farewell. The horse was sold, too.

When he went into the cabin, he lighted his smoky oil lamp and looked around. There wouldn’t be much to take with him. There were a few pelts fastened to the wall, skins of animals he had shot or trapped. His gun—he would have little need of that now.

He ate his supper and went to bed listening to the silence outside his cabin, wondering what the new life was going to be like.

It was a little past noon when he finished his packing and cleaning, for he took a certain pride in leaving everything immaculate.