When the Birds Fly South by Stanton A. Coblentz

It was in a bitter mood that I trudged back to Sobul. Even the mirth and laughter of Yasma could not dispel my gloom; I was as one who has seen a black vision, one who has read the handwriting on the wall. It seemed to me that my life had reached a barricade as formidable as the mountain bulwarks that hemmed me in; there was no longer a straw to clutch at; I was irredeemably a prisoner. Only once on the return trip did I break my silence, and that was to ask, as I had done a thousand times, what roads led back to trade routes, navigable rivers, or civilized settlements; and it was no consolation to be told, as invariably before, that there were no roads; that Sobul held no intercourse with the world, and that I was the first of my race ever seen there. I realized, of course, that there were rude trails leading out, for had not the Afghan guides escorted our geologists to this vicinity? Yet none of the Ibandru seemed to know anything of such trails, and how find my way unaided?

Then I must spend the winter with the Ibandru! In a few weeks the snow would be piling on the high mountain shoulders, and winter would hermetically seal the Valley of Sobul until the approach of April.