How does the exposition establish context that will be important as the plot moves forward?
A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under
the cottonwoods out over the sage.
Jane Withersteen gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and troubled eyes. A rider had just left
her and it was his message that held her thoughtful and almost sad.
She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to the little village of Cottonwoods was to
involve her. And then she sighed, remembering that her father had founded this remotest border
settlement of southern Utah and that he had left it to her. She owned all the
ground and many of the cottages. Withersteen House was hers, and the great ranch, with its thousands of
cattle, and the swiftest horses of the sage. Amber Spring belonged to her, the water which gave verdure
and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple upland
waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell Cottonwoods.
-Adapted from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
by linking the fate of the town with the fate of the protagonist
by foreshadowing the protagonist's decision to leave the town