Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE CRAWL Straight away Beneath the flare of dawn, the Ree land lay, And through it ran the short trail to the goal. Thereon a grim turnpikeman waited toll: But 'twas so doomed that southering geese should Nine times, ere yet the vengeance of the Ree Should make their foe the haunter of a tale. Midway to safety on the northern trail The scoriae region of a hell burned black Forbade the crawler. And for all his lack, Hugh had no heart to journey with the suns: No suppliant unto those faithless ones Should bid for pity at the Big Horn's mouth. The greater odds for safety in the South Allured him; so he felt the midday sun Blaze down the coulee of a little run 37 That dwindled upward to the watershed Whereon the feeders of the Moreau head — Scarce more than deep-carved runes of vernal rain. The trailing leg was like a galling chain, And bound him to a doubt that would not pass. Defiant clumps of thirst-embittered grass That bit parched earth with bared and fang-like roots; Dwarf thickets, jealous for their stunted fruits, Harsh-tempered by their disinheritance — These symbolized the enmity of Chance For him who, with his fate unreconciled, Equipped for travel as a weanling child, Essayed the journey of a mighty man. Like agitated oil the heat-waves ran And made the scabrous gulch appear to shake As some reflected landscape in a lake Where laggard breezes move. A taunting reek Rose from the grudging seepage of the creek, Whereof Hugh drank and drank, and still would drink. And where the mottled shadow dripped as ink From scanty thickets on the yellow glare, The crawler faltered with no heart to dare Again the torture of that toil, until The master-thought of vengeance 'woke the will To goad him forth. And when ...