--Kipling's "The Explorer."




PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION

Three years have passed since Hubbard and I began that fateful
journey into Labrador of which this volume is a record. A little
more than a year has elapsed since the first edition of our record
made its appearance from the press. Meanwhile I have looked behind
the ranges. Grand Lake has again borne me upon the bosom of her
broad, deep waters into the great lonely wilderness that lured
Hubbard to his death.

It was a day in June last year that found me again at the point
where some inexplicable fate had led Hubbard and me to pass
unexplored the bay that here extends northward to receive the
Nascaupee River, along which lay the trail for which we were
searching, and induced us to take, instead, that other course that
carried us into the dreadful Susan Valley. How vividly I saw it
all again--Hubbard resting on his paddle, and then rising up for a
better view, as he said, "Oh, that's just a bay and it isn't worth
while to take time to explore it. The river comes in up here at
the end of the lake. They all said it was at the end of the lake."
And we said, "Yes, it is at the end of the lake; they all said so,"
and went on, for that was before we knew--Hubbard never knew. A
perceptible current, a questioning word, the turn of a paddle would
have set us right. No current was noticed, no word was spoken, and
the paddle sent us straight toward those blue hills yonder, where