who
knew him liked him well. But at the end of that time, on a wild
winter's night, he came back to them, dressed in opossum skins, with
scarce a vestige of European clothing about him. His beard had grown
down over his chest, and he had nearly forgotten his mother tongue,
but, when speech came to him again, he told them a strange story.

It was winter time when he rode away. All the table lands were deep
with snow; and, when he had escaped the policemen, he had crossed the
first of the great ridges on the same night. He camped in the valley he
found on the other side; and, having his gun and some ammunition with
him, he fared well.

He was beyond the country which had ever been trodden by white men, and
now, for the mere sake of adventure, he determined to go further still,
and see if he could cross the great White Mountains, which had hitherto
been considered an insurmountable barrier.

For two days he rode over a high table-land, deep in snow. Here and
there, in a shallow sheltered valley, he would find just grass enough
to keep his horse alive, but nothing for himself. On the third night he
saw before him another snow-ridge, too far off to reach without rest,
and, tethering his horse in a little crevice between the rocks, he
prepared to walk to and fro all night, to keep off the deadly snow
sleepiness that he felt coming over him. "Let me but see what is beyond
that next ridge," he said, "and I will lie down and die."

And now, as the stillness of the night came on, and the Southern Cross
began to twinkle brilliantly above the blinding snow, he was startled
once more by a sound which had fallen on his ear several times during
his toilsome afternoon journey: a sound as of a sudden explosion,
mingled, strangely too, with the splintering of broken glass. At first
he thought it was merely the booming in his ears, or the rupture of
some vessel in his bursting head. Or was it fancy? No; there it was
again, clearer than before. That was no noise in his head, for the
patient horse turned and looked toward the place where the sound came
from. Thunder? The air was clear and frosty, and not a cloud stained
the sky. There was some mystery beyond that snow-ridge worth living to
see.

He lived to see it. For an hour after daybreak next morning, he,
leading his horse, stumbled over the snowcovered rocks that bounded his
view, and, when he reached the top, there burst on his sight a scene
that made him throw up his arms and