Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE EXPLORER 1 HERE'S no sense in going further?it's the edge of cultivation, So they said, and I believed it ? broke my land anoT sowed my crop ? Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop. Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated ? so: Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges ? Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting fol you. Go So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours ? Stole away with pack and ponies ? left 'em drinking in the town; id the faith that moveth mountains did n't seem to help my ' labours I I faced the shqer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down. March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodg- Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass; 'ill I camped above the tree-line ? drifted snow and naked boulders ? Felt free air astir to windward ? knew I 'd stumbled on th Pass. Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Northcf found me ? Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair fft'ir tur Railway 7np tn-Ayj fMin;b) Then my Whisper waked to hound me: ? Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder Go you there Then I khew, the while I doubted ? knew His Hand was certain o'er me. Still ? it might be self-delusion ? scores of better men had died? / I could reach thevtownship living, but . . . Hp/knows what terrors tore But I did n't . . . Ihiut I did n't. I wentd6wn the other side. Till the snow ran out in flowers, andthe flowers turned to aloes, And the aloes sprung tojj)icKets and a brimm...