"She managed to get uphill to a huge tree trunk and was pinned against it, hurt and howling to be let loose by the lashing wind, not knowing in the wild, whooping air if she made any sound at all. How long it lasted, she did not know. She was aware and was left exhausted by it, when at last it calmed to a steady rain, leaving the mountainside a watershed littered with treacherous dead branches.

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Long after dark, she found a rock ledge that had protected the leaves below from the rain and crawled under it, exhausted. She woke, hearing the rain in the pitch darkness of night, hearing more heavy breathing by her leaf bed, which she had banked high in the luxury of finding such a good place to rest.

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The smell that permeated the cave was not the fetid smell of bear, but the musty smell of a great cat. She saw no eyes shining and realized that the beast had not yet found her. Then, almost at once, she knew that the breathing was beyond breathing, had slipped over to being the satisfied purr of a cat in dry comfort and that, as long as the sound went on, she was safe.

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The presence of the animal was taking the chill off the rain-laden air.  And, stiff with fright as she was, she began to drowse. Her body was battered too much by the long storm and the falling on the wet slopes to let her stay completely awake.  But she woke frozen when she felt movement, felt the great, living, damp, soft pelt beside her and knew that, whatever beast it was, tired to death too, had crept close to her for her poor, pathetic warmth and still purred, drifting to sleep, meaning no harm.

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In the first glimmer of dawn, she saw it pause at the cave's mouth, look back once at her with eyes as grey as stones and pick its way gently into the morning on light buff feet, disappearing even as she became conscious. It was a huge, tawny cat that faded into the dawn like part of a dream."