“That’s not so,” I said slowly. “But blood is blood, Tim. You feel more for your natural mother than you ever could for your stepfather, and that’s only right. Well, it’s the same for me only turned around. But—and I would not lie—I do like Miss Pauline very much, and even though you irk me at times, if I am forced to admit it, I will confess to liking you too.”

He rubbed his nose with his sleeve. “Really?”

“Three owlhoots and a churchyard bell,” I said. That was our strongest oath, and it satisfied him.

“Lizzy?” he said after a while.

“What, Tim?”

“What do you mean to do when we get home?”

“Do?”

“I guess we’ll have to go right to school, won’t we? We’ll have a lot of absences to make up.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going back to school, not right off,” I told him. “There’s work to do.”

“What kind of work?”

“Indian Pete and me are going to find that road where the Model T is and go down the creek and fetch out my father.”

He didn’t answer for a long time, and when he did, his voice had a bad crack in it. “Oh,” he said. Then: “I want to go with you.”

“You can go, Tim. I promise you that.”

He burrowed under the blankets. “I’m sleepy. Lizzy, will you tell me a story?”

“Yes,” I said, and I told him the first part of Sinbad the Sailor, which was one of his favorites, until he was asleep. Then I sat and stared into the fire and hoped that it would not snow hard.

In the morning the air was heavy and the branches drooped under the cracking frost, but there was no snow. We looked longingly at the firewood we had gathered so laboriously the previous evening, but there was no way to take it with us. The cooked apples were frozen in the pot. While Tim packed up our gear, I melted them over the dying embers of the fire, and we ate them for breakfast. They would have benefited from a little sugar and nutmeg but were still a welcome change from stew.

The air grew more chill as the day wore on. By midafternoon we both knew that we were in for a storm. We had lived in the mountains too long to mistake the omens.

We were just about to make early camp when Tim stiffened and said: “Look!” He pointed downhill, through the trees. “I see water.”

I craned my neck but could see nothing. Although he was a year younger, Tim was four inches taller than me.

“Come on,” he said, hurrying downhill. I followed, and it was then that the snow began to come through the trees, powder snow at first, then larger flakes, clinging to our glistening cheeks.