presented a scene of desolate grandeur, standing out against the
blue sky like a grim barrier placed there to guard the land beyond.
As I gazed upon them, some lines from Kipling's "Explorer" that I
had often heard Hubbard repeat were brought forcibly to my mind:

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind
the Ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

Let us call these ranges the Kipling Mountains.

To the north, hill after hill, with bald top rising above the
stunted trees on its sides, limited our range of vision. Far away
to the south stretched a rolling, wooded country. To the eastward
the country was flatter, with irregular ranges of low hills, all
covered with a thick growth of spruce and fir balsam. Beyond the
point where the water flowed from it southeasterly into the river
we had ascended, the lake at the foot of our hill seemed to extend
directly eastward for four for five miles; but the thick wood of
the valleys and low-lying hills made it difficult to see just where
it ended, so that from where we stood it was impossible to tell
what course the river took--whether it came from the east, bending
about in the lake expansion below us, or flowed from the west
through the lake expansions beyond. Away off to the northeast an
apparently large lake could be discerned, with numerous mound-like
islands dotting its surface.

For a long time we stood and gazed about us. Far to the southeast
a tiny curl of smoke rose heavenward in the clear atmosphere. That
was Hubbard's campfire--the only sign of life to be seen in all