Part 4, Chapter 49 Summary

Tom builds his new lodge on the first bench of Granite Peak. Tom sets up drying poles and the venison and prepares all meat and parts of the killed deer like he promised.

Tom gathers food from the mountain and catches and smokes trout. Tom cuts ironwood and forms snow shoes for the winter. Tom stows firewood in the lodge and completes his preparations for winter.

Tom thinks back on the encounter with the bear and knows that if he had pulled the trigger and missed the heart, the bear would have killed him. Tom begins to examine why he was driven to the hunt in the first place.

Tom reaches back into his memory to where the bear hunt really began - the bear cub, Blue Elk, the school, the and the denial in the moonlight. That was when he...