He had journeyed, sore and weary, over deserts wide and dreary; through the snows of far Sibery he had dragged his frozen form; he had searched the site of Eden, been through Kansas, wild and bleedin'; in the far-off hills of Sweden he had faced the winter storm. In the vain pursuit of glory, hoping he would live in story, he had hoofed it to Empory, from Toronto on the lake; he had heard land agents rattle through the suburbs of Seattle, he had seen the Creek of Battle, where they live on sawdust cake. Fate was kind, and just to prove her he had journeyed to Vancouver, where the emigrant and mover pitch their tents upon the street; he had roamed the broad Savannah, he had voted in Montana; hunting with the mighty Bwana, Afric's jungles knew his feet. He had sung the boomer's ditty down in Oklahoma City, thinking it a blooming pity that the town had such a name; he had mined in cold Alaska, farmed with Bryan in Nebraska, and was never known to ask a least advantage in the game. To his native town returning, all reporters there were yearning to receive a statement burning, from this calm intrepid soul; not of fights or sieges gory was the hero's simple story; "I have but one claim to glory—I have never found the Pole!" |