"There's no sense in going
further--it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it--broke my land and 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 for
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;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my
labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading
down.
March by march I puzzled
through em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of
grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line--drifted snow and naked
boulders--
Felt free air astir to windward--knew I'd stumbled on the
Pass.
'Thought to name it for the
finder; but that night the Norther found me--
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the
camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper
waked to hound me:--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you
there!"
Then I knew, 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 the township living, but . . . He knows what
terror tore me . . .
But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other
side.
Till the snow ran out in
flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran
by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water
drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert--blasted earth, and blasting
sky. . . .
I remember lighting fires;
I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the
smoke;
I remember they were fancy--for I threw a stone to try
'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they
spoke.
I remember going crazy. I
remember that I knew it
When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw.
'Very full of dreams that desert, but my two legs took me
through it . . .
And I used to watch 'em moving with the toes all black and
raw.
But at last the country
altered--White Man's country past disputing--
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills
behind--
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week
recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on
my find.
Thence I ran my first rough
survey--chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em--
Week by week I pried and sampled--week by week my findings
grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a
kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth
of two!
Up along the hostile
mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers--
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin
ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined
rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable
plains!
'Plotted sites of future
cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnassed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an
hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe
woods that screen 'em--
Saw the plant to feed a people--up and waiting for the
power!
Well I know who'll take the
credit--all the clever chaps that followed--
Came, a dozen men together--never knew my
desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes
I'd hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be
called the Pioneers!
They will find my sites of
townships--not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers--not my rivers heard at
night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to
get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet
aright.
Have I named one single
river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget--(barring samples)? No, not
I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my
Maker.
But your wouldn't understand it. You go up and
occupy.
Ores you'll find there;
wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway-rates down), coal and iron
at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His
people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and
it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never
country"--yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further"--till I crossed the range
to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to
our nation.
Anybody might have found it, but--His Whisper came to
Me!