Chapter II: Prairie Songs

THE CALL OF THE WIND

|THE wind comes rollicking out of the West

(Oh, wind of the West, so free!)

With the scent of the plains on its heaving breast.

(Oh, plains that I no more see!)

It cries through the smoky and roaring town

Of the tossing grass and the hillsides brown

Where the cattle graze as the sun goes down.

(Oh, sun on the prairie sea!)

And this is the song that the West wind sings;

(Oh, call of the wind, have done!)

That the worth of life is the joy it brings.

(Oh, joy that is never won!)

That the stainless sky and the virgin sod

Hold richer wealth, of the peace of God,

Than the streets where the weary toilers plod.

(Oh, streets that the heart would shun!)

But, wind of the West, in vain thy voice,

(Oh, why must the voice be vain?)

If joy were all, 'twere an easy choice.

(Oh, choice that is fraught with pain!)

The road of life is a hard, hard way

But yet, if we hold to the path, it may

Lead back to the land of dreams some day.

(Yes, back to the plains again!)

THE FUR TRADERS

|THE moon, on plain and bluff and stream,

Casts but a faint and fitful gleam,

For, striving in a ghostly race,

The clouds that rack across her face

Now leave her drifting, white and high,

In some clear lake of purple sky

And then, like waves with crests upcurled,

Obscure her radiance from the world.

Across the wild Missouri's breast

Which lies in icy armor dressed,

The north wind howls and moans.

Wrenching the naked trees that stand

Like skeletons along the strand,

To shrill and creaking groans.

On distant butte and wide coteau

Is snow and never-ending snow:

Whirling aloft in spiral clouds,

Weaving in misty, crystal shrouds,

Then floating back to earth again

To drift across the frozen plain

In strangely sculptured trough and crest,

Like some slow ocean's heaving breast.

Such night is not for mortal kind

To fare abroad; the bitter wind,

The restless snows, the frost-locked mold

Bid living creatures seek their hold

And leave to Winter's monarch will

The solitudes of vale and hill.

The buffalo, whose legions vast

A few short moons ago have passed

Adown these bleak hillsides,

Now graze full many a league away

Where, through the genial southern day

The winds of Matagorda Bay

Caress their shaggy hides.

The wolves have sought their coverts deep

In dark ravine and coulée steep,

Where cedar thickets, dense and warm,

Afford protection from the storm,

And every creature of the plains

Has left his well-beloved domains

To seek, or near or far,

A haven where warm-blooded life

May cower from the dreadful strife

Of hyperborean war.

But see, across yon barren swell

Where wind and snow-rime weave a spell

Of phantoms o'er the hill,

What awkward creatures of the night

Come creeping, snail-like, on the sight,

Halting and slow, in weary plight

But ever onward still?

Their limbs are long and lank and thin,

Their forms are swathed from foot to chin

In garments rude of bison skin.

Upon each broad and stalwart back

Is strapped a huge and weighty pack,

Their coarse and ragged hair

Streams back from brows whose dusky stain

Is dyed by blizzard, wind, and rain,

They are a fearsome pair;

Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast.

They seem like cursed souls, outcast

To roam forever there.

Yet hark! Adown the cold wind flung,

What voice of merriment gives tongue?

'Tis human laughter, deep and strong,

And now, all suddenly, a song

Rings o'er the prairie lone!

A chanson old, whose rhythm oft

Has lingered on the breezes soft

That kiss the storied Rhone,

Or floated up from lips of love

To some dark casement, high above

The streets of Avignon,

Where lovely eyes, all maidenly,

Glance shyly forth, that they may see

What lover comes to serenade

Ere drawing back the latticed shade

To toss a red rose down.

What fickle fate, what strange mischance

Has brought this song of sunny France

To ride upon the blizzard crest

That mantles o'er the wild Northwest?

To find its echoes sweet

In barren butte and stark cliff-side,

Whose beetling summits override

The fierce Missouri's murky tide;

To rouse the scurrying feet

Of antelope and lean coyote;

To hear its last, long, witching note,

Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat,

Sweep by on pinions fleet.

Full far these errant sons of Gaul

Have journeyed from the gray sea-wall

That fronts on fair Marseilles,

But still the spirit of their race

Bids them to turn a dauntless face

On whate'er Fates prevail.

The storm may drive to bush and den

The creatures of the field and fen,

But neither storm nor darksome night

Nor ice-bound stream nor frowning height

Can check or turn or put to flight

These iron-hearted men.

Across the flats of stinging sands,

Through thickets, woods, and sere uplands,

Their weary pathway shows;

Toward some far fort of logs and stakes

Deep hidden in the willow brakes,

Right onward still it goes

Persistently, an unblazed track,

Bent from the cheerless bivouac

Of some poor, prairie Indian band

Whose chill and flimsy tepees stand

Half buried in the snows.

Yet what of costly merchandise

That wealth may covet, commerce prize,

Can these adventurers wring

From that ill-fed, barbarian horde

As seems to them a meet reward

For all the risk and toil and pain

They've suffered on the winter plain

Amid their journeying?

Ah, wealth enough is garnered there,

Though not of gold or jewels rare,

To rouse the white man's longing greed

And send his servants forth with speed

To lay the treasure bare.

The trinkets cheap these traders brought

The savages have dearly bought,

Persuaded guilelessly to pay

A ten times doubled usury

In furs of beavers and of minks,

Of silver fox and spotted lynx.

For all their rich and varied store

Of peltries, gathered from the shore,

The wood, the prairie, and the hill

By trapper's art and hunter's skill,

The traders' heavy packs now fill.

A journey far those furs must go

From these wild fastnesses of snow,

By travois, pack, and deep bateau;

By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman

Till half a hemisphere they span,

Ere they will lie, at last, displayed

By boulevard and esplanade

In Europe's buzzing marts of trade.

These marten skins, so soft and warm,

May wrap some Russian princess' form

And shield her from the Arctic storm

That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay;

That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed,

May cloak some warrior monarch's breast

As, gazing o'er the battle crest,

He sees the foemen's legions pressed

In panic, from the fray.

But it is not the destinies

Which may, perchance, beyond the seas,

Await these rare commodities,

That chiefly signify,

Though king and knight and princess fair

Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare

Their pride to gratify.

But this; that in the storm to-night.

Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight,

Two men still press along.

Not hiding, as the wolf and hind,

From blinding snow and bitter wind

Nor, like the Indian, crouching low

Above a brush-fire's feeble glow

But, vigorous and strong,

Hasting their bidden task to close

Whate'er obstructions interpose

And parrying Fortune's adverse blows

Right gaily, with a song.

Plains of the mighty, virgin West,

Plains in cold, sterile beauty dressed,

Your time of fruit draws near!

Creatures of thicket, vale and shore,

Tribes of the hills, your reign is o'er,

The conquerer is here!

His footprints mark your secret grounds,

His voice upon your air resounds,

His name, unto your utmost bounds,

Is one of strength and fear.

The magic of his virile powers

Shall change your desert wastes to bowers,

Your nakedness to shade;

Shall stretch broad, rustling ranks of corn

Along your stony crests forlorn

And wheat-fields, dappling in the sun,

Where your mad autumn fires have run.

The trails your bison made

Shall grow beneath his hurrying feet

To highway broad and village street,

Along whose grassy sides shall sleep

Meadows and orchards, fruited deep;

Homesteads and schools and holy fanes

To prove that all these fertile plains

Are turned by God's eternal plan

To serve the onward march of man,

Which sweeping down the vale of time

With gathering strength and hope sublime

Is never checked nor stayed.

COWBOY SONG

|WE are up in the morning ere dawning of day

And the grub-wagon's busy and flap-jacks in play,

While the herd is astir over hillside and swale

With the night-riders rounding them into the trail.

Come, take up your cinches

And shake up your reins;

Come, wake up your bronco

And break for the plains;

Come, roust those red steers from the long chaparral,

For the outfit is off for the railroad corral!

The sun circles upward, the steers as they plod

Are pounding to powder the hot prairie sod,

And it seems, as the dust turns you dizzy and sick

That you'll never reach noon and the cool, shady creek.

But tie up your kerchief

And ply up your nag;

Come, dry up your grumbles

And try not to lag;

Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral,

For we're far on the way to the railroad corral!

The afternoon shadows are starting to lean

When the grub-wagon sticks in a marshy ravine

And the herd scatters further than vision can look,

For you bet all true punchers will help out the cook!

So shake out your rawhide

And snake it up fair;

Come, break in your bronco

To taking his share!

Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral,

For it's all in the drive to the railroad corral!

But the longest of days must reach evening at last,

When the hills are all climbed and the creeks are all passed,

And the tired herd droops in the yellowing light;

Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's in sight!

Come, strap up the saddle

Whose lap you have felt;

So flap up your holster

And snap up your belt;

Good-bye to the steers and the long chaparral;

There's a town that's a trump by the railroad corral!

CHRISTMAS EVE AT KIMBALL

|MET a chap the other night, down on Halsted Street,

Holdin' up Mike Kelley's bar, sippin' mint an' rye;

I'd just hit the Stock Yards with a cattle-train o' meat,

Loped around to Kelly's place, singein' hot an' dry.

This here chap was somethin' rare; Henglish tweeds an' gloves,

Stripey collar round his neck, sparks to throw away,

He was givin' 'em a song, 'bout the town he loves,

How they hit "the pace that kills," down on old Broadway.

Heaved a wistful, weepy sigh 'twould make a bay steer groan

When he told us what a spangled, rompin' time he'd had

Christmas Eve a year ago, just before he'd blown

Out into the "Woolly," where we don't know shrimps from shad.

Claimed along 'bout three a. m. they found an apple girl

Sleepin' in a doorway; stole her fruit to raise a fuss,

Then they made her do a Midway Turkish dancin' whirl

'Fore they'd pay the damage--an' he called that generous!

Awful homesick yarn it was. 'Peared he couldn't find

Nothin' in the whoopin' line warm enough out West.

Made me sort o' weary, so, to ease my mind,

I dug up a Christmas tale an' let him take a rest.

Mind the Northwest homestead boom, twenty-odd years back,

When Dakota stuck her nose above the waves o' fame?

I was pottin' coyotes from a Brule County shack,

Burnin' hay an' eatin' pork an' holdin' down my claim.

Not a strictly stirrin' life; quite a lot less gay

Than workin' in a grave-yard, a-plantin' of remains.

Notion hit me Christmas time to take a holiday;

Roped the cayuse, strapped my guns, an' struck across the plains.

Galloped into Kimball 'long 'bout milkin' time,

Wind a-whoopin' from the North, cold as billy hell--

Ever known a prairie town in its infant prime?

Kimball was a corker an' I've seen some pretty swell.

Just a bunch o' dry goods boxes dumped along a rise,

Cracks plugged up with pitch an' tar, stove-pipes stickin' through,

But, you bet, that little burg was sure enough the prize

Fer stirrin' up a tinted time an' startin' it to brew.

Thought I'd have a quiet night; Lord, it wa'n't no use!

First bumped into Billy Stokes, up from Bijou Hills,

We wandered into "Rancher's Rest," spang onto "Shorthorn" Bruce,

Charlie Gates an' "Doc" Lemar, curin' of their chills.

Well, that closed the "quiet" act; things was due to burn.

Dabbled with the red-eye till the lamp-lights ringed an' soared.

Then Lemar got wealthy an' thought he'd take a turn

Spinnin' out his sinkers on the racy roulette board.

Oh, the time was lovely (fer the man behind the wheel!)

Stokes an' "Shorthorn" joined the game, just to try their luck,

Charlie, landin' on the bar, started off a reel;

Then the banker "rolled the roll"--an' the blame thing stuck!

"Fixed!" yells Bill an' "Shorthorn," whippin' out their pipes;

Banker backed ag'in the wall, huntin' fer a crack,

Air just pink with cuss-words, runnin' round in stripes,

Doors an' winders full o' folks, none a-comin' back.

"Doc" was just a-prancin' round, gettin' things in range,

So's to shoot the whole joint up without no undue pause,

When we heerd a little voice, thin an' mighty strange,

Pipin' up from somewheres, "Mister, is you Santa Claus?"

Well, I swan, if that there shack had gathered up an' r'ared

An' galloped off across the street, we'd not been more knocked out

Than when we seen that little girl, blue-eyed an' curly-haired,

A-standin' in the bar-room, half-way 'twixt a smile an' pout.

Say, we ducked them guns o' ours underneath our hats

'S if the Sheriff's deputies had just come jumpin' in.

We sure was worse kerflummuxed than a lot o' sneakin' rats,

Caught a-stealin' barley in some feller's stable-bin.

That there little lady stood an' looked around a spell,

Then she toddled to Lemar an' looked up in his eyes:

"Oo's the big, long-whiskered man I'se heard my Mama tell,

'At brings nice fings to everyone what's good an' never cries.

"Mama's good; I'se tried to be"--her eyes began to fill--

"But she says 'at Santa Claus can't come this Christmas Day.

I don't see why; since Papa's in that still place on the hill

She never gets no p'itty clo'es, nor me nice toys for play.

"She told me, though, 'at Santa Claus was here in town to-night

An' so I fought I'd dess slip out an' find him if I could

An' see if he's dot sump'n left--I fought, perhaps, he might--

An', mister, if you's Santy, tan we have it, if we's good?"

I've seen "Doc" get ditched an' wrecked with forty cars o' steers

An' take it like a mallard duck, paradin' in the rain;

Never thought he'd learned to know there was such things as tears,

Which shows it's hard to figger how a feller works his brain.

He turned round an' raked his stakes from off that roulette board,

An' the whiskey wasn't guilty for his huskiness o' voice:

"Boys," says he, "I pass this deal right here an', by the Lord,

I blow my wad on somethin' else--you all kin take yer choice.

"It's well enough to whoop things up an' get a gorgeous head

But mighty wise to recolleck yer coin's just gone to grass.

I'm a-goin' to take a whirl at Santy Claus, instead,

Wish that toys was in my line, but maybe these'll pass."

Every cent he skirmished, from his hat-band to his pants,

Went into the apron that the little one held out;

Rest of us, we follered suit, scrappin' fer the chance,

Then we took her to the door an' finished with a shout.

But, before we let her go--shameful sort o' trick!--

Made her kiss us all good-night; "Doc" took his right slow.

I just sucked my breath all in an' hustled through it quick;

Still, she didn't seem to mind; guess she didn't know.--

"Now," says I, "my homesick friend" (to him on Halsted Street),

"You're a painful sort o' sight, crackin' up Broadway.

Kimball, Brule County, was an ace-high flush to beat

An' I'd backed her to the limit fer a winner in the play.

"But the beauty-spot on Kimball an' the boys that made her hum

Was the fact that rye an' roulette didn't petrify their souls;

Simply tip 'em to the theory that yer luck was on the bum

An' they'd cut the game instanter an' deliver up their rolls.

"An' if I'd a wife an' children an' was billed fer Canaan's Strand

I'd take a sight more pleasure in a-turnin' up my toes

If I left 'em to the mercies o' that old Dakota land

Than in your plug-hat city where the money-grubber grows."

A LAMENT

|RAWHIDE" Smith's gone crazy.

"Rawhide" was my pard.

Used to be a daisy;

Say, it's mighty hard!

Down at Twin Buttes City

"Rawhide" met a maid,

Young an' slim an' pretty
An' she turned his haid.

We jest started dancin'

Frolicsome an' gay--

Hang the pay-day prancin'

When it ends that way!

Say! that little creature

Got him roped all right;

First I knew, a preacher

Had spliced 'em good an' tight.

Now he's gone to farmin'

Way off from the range.

Says his place is charmin';

Lord, he's gettin' strange!

No more pal to cheer me

Ridin' herd at night;

No more comrade near me,

Game fer fun or fight.

One coat did fer cover

Cold nights when it stormed,

But them nights is over;

"Rawhide" Smith's reformed!

JESUS GARCIA

|DOWN in Sonora's wide, white lands,

Lost in the endless waste of sands,

Lies, like a blot of gray and brown,

Nacozari, a desert town.

All day long through its narrow street

Children play in the dust and heat,

Naked of limb and dark of face,

Lithe as fawns in their careless grace,

Chattering shrill in a half-caste speech

Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach.

All day long by the doorways small

Cut through the thick adobe wall,

Or in the narrow belts of shade

Here and there by the flat roofs made,

Lounge the indolent, swarthy men,

Moving sluggishly now and then

Better to scan their dicing throws

Under their low-tipped sombreros.

But, for the most, content to lie

Drowsing the listless hours by,

Watching, each, as the thin, blue jet

Curls from his drooping cigarette.

All day long, from the dawn's first flush

When the mass is said in the morning hush

Till fall of eve, when the vesper's peal

Calls the faithful again to kneel,

Nothing rouses the quiet place,

Lulled in the desert's hushed embrace,

Save when out of the distance dim,

Over the far horizon's rim,

Sudden a purring whisper comes,

Rising swift, like the throb of drums,

And the iron track which stretches forth,

Straight as a lance from south to north,

Quivers and sings in the mighty strain

From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train

Then, for a space, as the whistle screams,

Nacozari awakes from dreams.

Women and children, boys and men

Stream to the station platform then,

Eager to gaze from its long plank walk,

With gesturing arms and rapid talk,

At the huge machine like a comet hurled

From the mystical zone of the outer world.

Thus it was on one summer's day,

While the land in its noontide slumber lay

With never a living creature near

Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear

Basking himself in the fervid heat,

Or, high aloft, like a pirate fleet,

A flock of vultures on lazy wing

Circling wide in a watchful ring,

That into the street of the desert town

A long, slow freight came rolling down,

Laden with goods of Northern yield

For Mexican mine and town and field.

Rumbling in with failing speed

It came to rest like a. tired steed,

With the mogul engine's dusty flank

Close by the massive water-tank,

As if it longed, like a living thing,

To quench its thirst at the cooling spring

Of the thousand-foot artesian well,

Sunk through the desert's crusted shell.

Just as it stopped with a grinding jar

Rattling back from car to car,

Out of the engine-cab swung clear

Jesus Garcia, the engineer,

Sooted and grimed to his finger-tips

But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips,

For he was handsome and young and strong

And love was the theme of his murmured song.

Slowly he passed his engine by

Scanning its length with a practiced eye,

Touching a polished slide-valve here.

Or there, a shaft of the running-gear,

Which done, he turned in a boyish mood

To a group of children who, gaping, stood

At the side of the track, too wonder-bound

To move a limb or to make a sound.

Into their midst Garcia sprung

And a chubby lad to his shoulder swung,

Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck

Like a sailor tossed on a rocking deck.

Perhaps to the Mexican engineer

The child suggested a vision dear

Of a little boy of his very own

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,

And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day,

Told beads for her husband, far away,

And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back,

For his mogul engine along the track.

But only a moment, with swinging feet,

The baby perched on his lofty seat,

For suddenly down by the cars in rear

There rang a shriek of unbridled fear.

Garcia turned, in amaze looked back;

A score of men from the railroad track

Were rushing away in a frantic race

As if they had looked on a demon's face,

And then, as he turned, the cause was plain

For half-way back in the standing train

A flame licked out from a box-car's side,

Yellow and spiteful, a handbreadth wide.

His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled

As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child,

Nor even forgot in his haste to place

A good-bye kiss on the upturned face;

Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed

Intent, at the spot where the fire blazed.

Barely a glance was enough to tell

It was a car which he knew full well--

Shipped in bond by a fast freight line,

Bound for a great Sonora mine--

Filled to the roof and loaded tight

With closed-tiered boxes of dynamite;

Enough, if its deadly strength found vent,

To rock the land like a billowed tent,

Sweeping the town from the desert sand

Clean as the palm of an opened hand.

What did he do, the engineer,

Face to face with this mortal fear?

Turn, as the rest, to the desert wide,

Mad with dread, for a place to hide,

Leaving the town and its helpless folk

Doomed to death at a single stroke?

No! Though only a peon born

Heart like his might a king adorn!

Waving his arms to his frightened crew,

Such as remained, a scattered few,

Garcia uttered a warning shout--

"Undile! Vamos!" ("Run! Get out!")

Leaped to his engine waiting there,

Opened the throttle, released the air,

And started the jets for the sand to run

On the glassy rails where the drivers spun,

Till, biting the steel with a spurt of fire

Sputtering back from each grinding tire,

The monster conquered its straining load

And, gathering speed on the curveless road,

It rolled from the town and left it whole.

Like death torn loose from a stricken soul.

But looking backward with stern-set face,

Throttle gripped in a firm embrace,

Garcia goaded his panting steed

Ever and ever to faster speed.

Knowing still if the blow should fall

It would shatter the village wall from wall.

Now from the sides of the car behind,

Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind,

Burst the flames in a lashing sheet

Peeling the paint with its fervid heat,

Vomiting sparks like a fiery hail

On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail.

Still the mogul, in giant flight,

Swaying drunkenly left and right,

Strained to the race, while the rails it trod

Thundered behind it, rod by rod;

Still in its cab, foredoomed, alone.

Waiting death like a man of stone,

Stood Garcia, his feet braced wide

To the pitch and plunge of the engine's stride,

With never a frown to show he knew

Regret for the task he was there to do.

Hardly a mile had his wild train fled

Into the desert straight ahead,

When a flare of light to his vision came

As if the world were engulfed in flame.

Perhaps it fell on his closing eyes

Like the great, white light of Paradise;

Perhaps, in the roar which smote him there,

Too deep for a mortal ear to bear,

He heard but the Heavenly trumpet-roll

Blown clear to welcome a hero's soul.

At least, if any have won to rest

In the fair, green land of the ever blest

By earning their right therein to dwell,

Jesus Garcia deserved it well,

For in the blast that strewed his train,

Torn in fragments, along the plain.

Only his soul went forth to meet

The final call at his Master's feet.

So it is that to-day, alone,

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,

A brown-skinned woman with sad, dark eyes

Looks on her child at his play, and sighs,

Knowing well she will hark in vain

For her husband's step at the door again.

Or watch, as the trains steam back and forth,

For his mogul engine out of the North.

So it is that when evening falls,

Draping the dull adobe walls

Fold on fold in its tender mist,

Purple and blue and amethyst,

And Nacozari kneels down to pray

At the vesper call from the chapel gray,

Many an orison of love

Is wafted up to the stars above

For the peace of Jesus Garcia's soul;

He who had saved the village whole

By the utmost gift which a man can give--

Life, that his fellow men might live.

A CHRISTMAS LETTER

|Dear miss:

For this pink stationery

Forgive me; it's all I could find

In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry,

So I took it--I hope you won't mind.

For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending,

Though in words not the best ever slung,

To you, where the Tiber is wending.

From me, on the banks of the Tongue.

Perhaps you've forgotten the morning

When your car of the Overland Mail

Broke loose on a curve, without warning,

And was ditched by the spread of a rail?

I was herding near by in the valley,

And I pulled out your father and you,

And I found that your name, Miss, was Sallie,

And--well, I remember. Do you?

You were there for five hours at least, Miss,

Then the whistle, a smile, a last word,

And you rolled away to the East, Miss,

While I galloped back to the herd.

You back to your world and its beauties.

New York, Paris, Rome, and all those,

I, back to a cowboy's rough duties

In sunshine and rainstorm and snows.

But to-night I'm alone in the shack here

On my quarter-square Government claim,

While coyotes are yelping out back here--

You'd be scared, Miss, I guess, by the same.

The moonlight is white on the river,

And the long, frozen miles of the plain

Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver

And wish it was summer again.

It's different where you are, I reckon,

Leastways from the books it must be,

Where the green hills of Italy beckon

And the Tiber sings down to the sea;

Where the red roses always are climbing

And the air smells of olives and pines,

And at evening the vesper bells' chiming

Floats up toward the far Apennines.

You like it, no doubt, and you'd never

See beauties that nature can hold

Where the snow lies in drifts on the river

And the prairies are empty and cold.

But somehow I wouldn't forego it

For all of those soft, southern lands.

I breathe it and feel it and know it;

It grips me as if it had hands.

The stars in the night, how they glisten!

The plains in the day, how they spread!

There's room to stand up in, and listen,

And know there's a God overhead.

And then, when the summer is coming

And the cattle start out on the trails,

And you hearken at dawn to the drumming

Of prairie-hens down in the swales.

Why, Italy simply ain't in it!--

But, Miss, here I'm talking too free.

Excuse me; my thoughts for a minute

Got sort of the better of me.

It was just about Christmas I started;

To me, it was only a name

Till that day when we met, talked and parted,

But since it has not been the same.

For you gave me a new kind of notion

Of the countries and people and such

On the trails that lie over the ocean--

I guess we don't differ so much.

And Christmas is chuck full of spirit

That everywhere under the sun

Warms up anyone who comes near it

And fills them with good-will and fun.

So I want you to know from this letter

That the time by the train wreck with you

Made me know all humanity better

And like the whole bunch better, too.

And I hope, if it seems like presuming

That a letter shall come to your door

In the land where the roses are blooming

From me, on the Tongue's icy shore,

You'll forgive, Miss, an uncultured party

In the spirit of Christmas, and take

These thanks and good wishes, all hearty,

From

Your most sincere

CHEYENNE JAKE.

THE COYOTEVILLE PEACE MEETING

|WE held a peace convention in Coyoteville last night,

A reg'lar Haygue Tribunal fer order, law, an' right,

Fer we'd about concluded that fightin' come too free

An' municipal conditions wasn't all they ought to be.

"Dad" Sykes had been to Denver an' Blake to Omaha,

An' they come back a-preachin' of the sights which they had saw,

How no one carried weepons an' folks was nice an' mild.

An', compared with them there cities, Coyoteville was wild.

In Coyoteville the habit of some gentlemen at nights,

If they felt in pleasant spirits, was to puncture out the lights.

Also, in questions dealin' with a social poker game

They was prone to draw their irons an' argue with the same.

All which, from "Dad" Sykes' view-point, an' likewise Mister Blake's,

Was morally pervertin' an' the biggest of mistakes,

Since Coyoteville's best people had begun a-takin' pride

In makin' her the model of the cattle-countryside.

Therefore, we held a meetin' in the Frou-Frou Dancin' Hall;

"Dad" Sykes he played first fiddle an' Blake was there to call--

I mean that Sykes persided an' Billy wrote it down

When motions was perpounded on how to run the town.

"Bat" Blarcum broached the idee, supported by a speech,

That the closin' of the thirst-joints was the only thing would reach,

Since liquor bred dissension which only blood could stop

As he knew from observation, though he "never touched a drop!"

Then Pierpont Robyn Stebbins arose an' begged to say.

That the road to civic virtue lay quite another way:

To punish weepon toters would be the proper feat--

Jest confiscate their weepons an' make 'em clean the street.

But Bobby Earl was doubtful of Pierpont Robyn's plan;

He thought that cleaning roadways would humiliate a man.

"Bat" Blarcum felt as Earl did, an' inferred that Stebbins' scheme

Was degenerate an' Eastern an' an iridescent dream.

Then Pierpont stood up coldly an' stated to the Chair

That Mister Earl's opinions would be weighty anywhere,

Therefore he meekly yielded, lest he be crushed indeed

By the most substantial leader of the law an' order creed.

Now Bobby weighed three hundred an' it somewhat nettled him

To be ridiculed in public there by Stebbins, who was slim,

But the Chairman wouldn't hear him till Pierpont's partner, Drew,

Had made some observations about "Bat" Blarcum, too.

Which last, he said he hated to cast aspersions 'round,

But he felt "Bat's" plan of action was very far from sound,

An' he questioned these reformers whose reform was brought about

Through a hate for rum engendered by the Keeley curin' route.

He finished; whereat Bobby raised objections an' was pained

At the style of Stebbins' language--an' Bobby was sustained.

Then Stebbins said the Chairman might be strong an' somethin' more,

But he dared not try sustainin' Mister Earl down on the floor!

By this time indications made it plain to persons there

That a spirit of contention was a-breedin' in the air,

Fer Drew jumped through a window as Blarcum slowly rose,

While Bobby Earl was aimin' fer Pierpont Stebbins' nose.

The other folks concluded it was gettin' time they went,

An' started fer the doorways by unanimous consent,

While the Chair came down on Stebbins regardless of the law,

An' Blake propelled the Minutes at Mister Blarcum's jaw.

There'll be a bunch of fun'rals in Coyoteville today;

Some well-known ex-reformers in the leadin' parts will play;

An' Coyoteville's considerin' this lesson o'er an' o'er,

That peace may have its battles as well, sometimes, as war.

THE SONG OF THE WINCHESTER

|FULL heir to the twist-bored yager gun with its half-inch slug, I stand;

His rest was the Forty-niner's arm, as mine is the sportsman's hand.

I am king of my day as he of his, from the swamp to the saw-backed spur,

And there's never a trail but has heard the hail of the ringing Winchester!

I've saved the leaguered wagon-train from the scalping-knife and stake;

I have held the lead through the blind stampede in the bison's dust-dimmed wake;

By the reeking dives of the placer camp I have killed for a careless jest,

And I've raped the loot from the stage-coach boot at the bandit's stern behest.

Away in the dusk of the Arctic night, where the frozen rivers flow

And the fringed aurora floods and fades on the endless fields of snow,

The hardy hunters trust my sights and my spinning bullet's speed

When they seek the lair of the great white bear or the haunt of the gray wolf's breed.

The steaming glades of the Amazon, where the crouching jaguar springs,

Have felt the breath of the whirring death my long-necked cartridge brings,

And the wind-whipped crests where the condor nests on the roof-ribs of the world

Have marked the thin, blue jet of smoke from my flashing muzzle hurled.

Oh, I am the mate of the deep-lunged men, stout son of a martial line,

From Uruguay to the Kootenay, from mangrove-reef to pine;

In the throbbing glare of the desert air, by the rocks where the rapids purr,

There is never a gun for fight or fun like the steel-blue Winchester!

PRAIRIE FIRE

|OVER the lonely prairie

The autumn twilight dies;

Quick, fitful winds through the hollows pass

That moan and sigh in the long, dry grass,

And ever a kildee cries.

The hovering darkness gathers;

But what is the rose tint there,

That flushes the far horizon

Like a turbulent city's glare?

It gathers and grows and widens,

It swallows the southward sky

And the timid wind, like a hunted deer,

Makes pause to hearken, then leaps in fear

And wails as it hurries by.

The heavens glow red to the zenith

In the ominous, fevered light,

And the glimmering hilltops waver,

Sharp-drawn on the walls of night.

And now, as a wide-flung army,

Hurled hot on the foemen's spears,

With plumes of smoke on its tossing head,

With flaring banners and lances red,

The wavering flood appears.

It runs like a wolf in hunger,

It roars like a mountain storm,

And before it the fleeing creatures

Far over the prairie swarm.

Pigeon and grouse and plover,

The air is alive with wings,

And the firm ground shakes with the pounding feet

Of bellowing bison in mad retreat

And the panic of smaller things.

Behind them the flames speed onward

O'er level and slope and swale,

And the grass is melted to embers,

Whirled high on the parching gale.

As strong as the ocean's billows,

As fierce as the blizzard's breath,

Is aught in Nature that may withstand

The league-long sweep of this scorching brand

That clutters the plains with death?

Ahead is a waiting darkness,

A shadow athwart the glare,

And the wild things have turned them to it,

For they know there is safety there.

The river, at last, the river!

A haven where all may hide.

With toil-spent lungs and with straining feet

They reel from the smoke and the peeling heat

To plunge in its grateful tide.

While the tongue of the hungry demon

Licks out on the naked sand,

And slavers its baffled fury

And sinks, like a dying hand.

Over the lonely prairie

So wan, the white moonrise grows;

From out of the North a chill wind rides

That spins the ash on the black hillsides

And, fading, an ember glows.

The clustered diamonds of midnight

Flash keen in the purple deep,

The hollows and hills are empty;

The desolate prairies sleep.