Chapter III: River Songs

THE MISSOURI

|WHEN the hollow void of Chaos

By the sun's first flame was lit,

And morning kissed the new earth's leaden sky,

When the hand of God reached downward

To the ocean's utmost pit

And reared the ragged continents on high,

From the naked, dripping ranges

Of the Rocky's granite sweep,

In a pathway through the quaking mud-plains torn,

Surged a waste of briny waters,

Roaring backward to the deep,

And the great Missouri, king of floods, was born.

It was there when, dank and noisome,

On the primal beds of shale

The fern and cycad forests fringed its shore,

And its depths have heaved in whirlpools

To the thresh of fin and tail

As the monster sea-snakes closed in deadly war.

Foot by foot through crumbling valleys

It has fought the Glacial Drift

As from out the North the rock-fanged moraines spread,

Hurling seas of thunderous waters

Through the slowly strangling rift

Where the ice-floes ground and gritted in its bed.

Huge of limb and tusked like tree-trunks,

When the evening sun hung low

Slugged the mammoths down to gambol in its tide,

And 'twas there that, ringed and goaded

By the cave-men's spears and bows,

They fell in blinded agony and died.

So, for dim, uncounted aeons

Did the torrent sweep along,

Rolling centuries like pebbles in its sands,

And the prairies sprung and blossomed

And the bison herds grew strong,

And the red men camped and hunted through its lands.

Till there came at last a season

When a gaunt-limbed figure burst

Through the woods that lipped the current's whirling foam,

And the flint-lock that he shifted

As he stooped to quench his thirst

Told the wilderness the first white man was come!

He, the white man, the magician,

Searcher, soldier, settler, lord,

Heir to all the crusted cycles of the past!

What were endless, lagging eras

While earth's wealth was being stored

To the pageant of his power at the last?

Came new visions to the river;

Came the voyageur's swift canoe,

Gliding ghost-like to the silent, dipping oar;

And the blunt-bowed keel-boat harnessed

To its brawny, sweating crew,

As they trailed the long cordelle-rope up the shore.

Came the block-house of the fur-trade,

Where the trappers brought their spoil

From bison-range and log-laced beaver fall;

French and half-breed, Sioux and Yankee,

Flinging out a season's toil

For a week of drunken revelry and brawl.

Up the swinging, bluff-bound reaches

Where the lonely bittern boomed

Throbbed a dull, insistent whisper, growing strong,

As the steamboat, flame-winged herald

To an age forespent and doomed,

Waked the woodlands with its piston's pulsing song.

Reeling down the rain-washed gullies

To its fertile, grassy vales

The Missouri saw the weary ox-teams plod;

Saw the red scouts on the ridges,

Heard the shots and dying wails,

Knew the unmarked graves beneath the prairie sod.

It has watched the thin, gray dust-cloud

With the summer heat-haze blent,

And the glint below of swords and bridle-chains,

As some squad of blue-clad troopers,

Like a wolf-pack on the scent,

Trailed the fleeing travois' track across the plains.

It has seen the long-horned cattle

Take the bisons' pasture lands,

Seen the cornfields spread where once the wild grass stood,

Marked the railroad bind the prairies,

League by league, with iron bands,

Felt the dizzy bridge-span leap its own dark flood.

Till the cow-town's rutted roadways

Into asphalt pavements grew.

By wires webbed and busy markets walled,

And the steel-trussed office building

Reared its cornice to the blue

Where the shanties of the mining camp had sprawled.

Now the hissing, rock-jammed rapids

Where of yore the fish-hawks bred,

Hear the thirsty turbines mumble in the gorge,

Tearing twice ten thousand horse-power

From the prisoned waters' head

To drive the distant smelter, mill and forge.

Now lakes of water ripple

Where before the sands lay dry,

And beyond the concrete walls which hold them caged--

Run shimmering, silver channels

Through fields of wheat and rye

Where yesterday the searing sand-storm raged.

But splendid though the epic

Of the river's wondrous past

As Homer e'er could sing or Milton pen,

It will know its grandest numbers

In the ages yet uncast

When its worth shall yield full measure unto men.

In this storehouse of the Nations,

Where but thousands prosper now,

The homes of teeming millions soon shall be;

On this noble waste of waters,

Untouched by steamer's prow,

Shall roll a people's commerce toward, the sea.

Unto us and to our children

Will be dealt the untold gains

If, shaping Nature's promise into deeds,

We accept the willing service

Of this Titan of the plains

And compel its mighty muscles to our needs,

Till its flood runs deep and constant

To the Mississippi's tide,

And the wedded torrents down the South are hurled,

Pouring forth their fleets of plenty

O'er oceans far and wide

To bear our country's riches to the world.

THE OLD CARRY

_(Near the mouth of the Missouri River is a narrow tongue of land between that stream and the Mississippi over which the Sioux Indians, on their expeditions in early days, were accustomed to transport their goods and boats in order to avoid the long journey around the point by water. Hence the locality received its name, Portage des Sioux.)_

|ROUND by tawny, foam-lipp'd streams,

Portage des Sioux,

In thy name what romance dreams,

Portage des Sioux!

But thy trails, once deep and worn,

Now lie gulfed in rustling corn,

And thy forest depths are shorn,

Portage des Sioux.

Where are all the dusky feet,

Portage des Sioux,

Trod thy pathways like a street,

Portage des Sioux?

Nevermore thy vales shall know

Flash of spear and twang of bow,

Nor the evening camp-fire's glow,

Portage des Sioux.

Yet when summer moonlight falls,

Portage des Sioux,

On thy glades and forest walls,

Portage des Sioux,

Phantom figures seem to go

'Neath the branches bending low,

Moccasined and pacing slow,

Portage des Sioux.

And the hoot-owl's mournful rune,

Portage des Sioux,

Quavers toward the sailing moon,

Portage des Sioux,

While, where shore and river meet,

Sob the waves with pulsing feet

Like a tom-tom's dying beat,

Portage des Sioux.

JAKE DALE

|WHAT, stranger, you never heerd tell o' Jake,

Jake Dale, o' the "Lucky George"?

You must 'a' been raised in the East, my son,

If you never clapped ears to the yarn that's spun

Of Jakey Dale an' the race he won

In the year o' the big ice gorge.

Come March in the Spring o' '81,

An' the river broke at Pierre

An' come rantin' down on the clean rampage.

She marked 36 on the Yankton gauge,

Which I reckon you know is some of a stage,

An' she covered the bottoms here.

The "George" was hitched on the city bar

Close up by the railroad track.

When the row began we fixed her strong,

Rigged seven hawsers where two belong;

She'd 'a' taken an acre o' soil along

If she'd dragged in the grindin' pack.

But along one night the drift-ice stopped;

The flood run clear as June,

Fer the stuff had jammed in Hagin's Bend

An' choked the channel from end to end,

An' it fought an' screamed like a wild-cat, penned,

In the light o' the cold March moon.

Yeh see that p'int acrost the bar

With the riffle o' shoal below?

Well, that's where the widow o' old Buck Slack

Oncet had a claim an' a drift-wood shack.

Where she lived an' slaved with her young-un pack,

All which was some time ago.

Well, we on the "George" had tumbled out--

The roar o' the jam was wild--

When we heerd a cry through the shriekin' night,

An' there on the p'int, in the pale moonlight,

A-wavin' an' yellin' with all her might,

Stood Buck Slack's youngest child.

An' we knowed, without darin' to say the word,

They was tripped fer the Great Unknown,

Fer the gorge had slapped the current round

An' cut 'em off from the higher ground,

An' the hand that could save 'em from bein' drowned

Was the hand of God alone.

Then all at oncet we heerd a yell

An', down 'cross the willow bank,

A-layin' a course that was skeercely snug,

Came Jakey Dale with his whiskey jug,

As drunk as the mate of a log-raft tug,

An' a-swearin' somethin' rank.

"You rust-chawed fragments o' junk," sez he,

"Now what do you think you've found?

A-standin' 'round on this old bilge tank

Like a bunch o' frogs on a floatin' plank;

Be ye lookin' fer gold in yon cut-bank?"

An' then he heerd that sound.

As quick as the jump of a piston-rod

He was over the wheel-box guard,

An' before we could Agger on stoppin' him

He had slashed the falls from the long-boat's rim

An' was out past the slush o' the channel's brim,

A-pullin' quick an' hard.

He sidled his tub through that rippin' flume

While we stood on the "George" an' swore.

The boy was loony with raw-corn gin,

But he reckoned his course to the width of a pin,

Ran straight to the eddy an' clawed her in,

An' staggered himself ashore.

Now, stranger, I want to ask you, flat,

If a man with his head-piece right,

Would 'a' piled eight folks in that skiff's inside

Fer a half-mile pull through that mill-race tide

An' think to land safe at the end o' the ride?

Well, Jake Dale did, that night.

When he shoved her off from the gumbo p'int

She reeled like a sawyer snag,

Then the current caught her along the beam

An' she whirled around an' shot down stream

With the foam from her bow like a cloud o' steam,

As fast as a red-tail stag.

Good Lord, the fright in them children's cries!

It curdled a feller's blood,

Them river men ain't a prayerful race,

But that night more'n one sort o' hid his face

An' sent up a plea to the Throne o' Grace

To guide them through the flood.

An' then that gorge sent up a roar

That shook the solid ground;

The sort that splits yer ears in two

When a side-wheel packet drops a flue

An' blows six b'ilers amongst her crew,

An' cooks them that ain't drowned.

She was breakin' loose like an avalanche,

Slipped free on a mountain side.

Jake Dale turned 'round an' give one look

An' read the truth like a printed book,

Then bent to his oars till the keel-post shook,

An' pulled fer the "George's" side.

He jammed her bow through the buckin' tide

Till the painter floated free;

With blinded eyes an' drippin' skin

He fought fer the race he had set to win

Like a soldier fights, till the ice rolled in

An' ground against her lee.

But he'd got her up to ropin' range

An' we hauled her to the rail.

When he'd landed the last one, safe an' sound,

Jake follered, an' says, as he looked around,

"You fellers fetch out that jug you found,

I'm as dry as the Mormon Trail!"

Well, stranger, that there is the yarn o' Jake,

Jake Dale, o' the "Lucky George."

He wasn't no saint with a gilt-edged crown;

His language would shatter a church-steeple down;

He'd a thirst in his throat that nothin' could drown,

An' a fist like a blacksmith's forge.

But, all the same, he'd a Christian soul

If he hadn't the Christian creed,

An' a better heart, by a blame long shot,

Than some pious folks that brag a lot

On savin' their souls, but haven't got

No time fer their brother's need.

An' I reckon the Lord has found a place

In the Kingdom o' the Lamb

Fer the man that cast his own fears by

An' showed that he wasn't afeared to die

Fer the sake of a frightened baby's cry,

That night o' the big ice jam.

THE ENGINEER OF THE "GOLDEN HIND"

|SLIM JACK" BRITT, of the packet "Golden Hind,"

Runnin' the Missouri 'fore the railroads spoiled the trade,

Engineer, and a good one of his kind,

Claimed to have no feelin's; 'twas the only brag he made.

Come what might, he didn't give a hang;

Watch a Levee shootin' scrape and never turn a hair,

Stand and chew while some other boat went bang!

And blew her decks and b'ilers half a mile up in the air.

News of death didn't bother him,

Never showed no feelin's by word or sigh or frown.

Gabr'el's Trump wouldn't worried Slim,

He'd just hump his shoulders and screw a steam-valve down.

Well, one day, out from Omaha,

Way late in November and makin' our last run,

Blizzard come, quick and thick and raw,

Slim was at the engines when the storm begun.

Boat chuck full, passengers and freight,

Had to get 'em somewhere 'fore the freeze-up brought us to,

So we run, crowdin' on the gait

And hopin' that a blind snag wouldn't rip our bottom through.

All at once a woman screamed aloud--

"Men, the boat's on fire! For God's sake, run ashore!"

Then, of course, panic in the crowd,

Shrieks and groans and curses and the fire's growin' roar.

Down below, 'round the fires there

Crew all took the fever, run up front and prayed--

All but Slim. He didn't seem to care;

Didn't have no feelin's and so he stayed.

Pilot yelled through the speakin' tube,--

"Can you keep the paddles goin' while I make a landin', Jack?"

"Blamed hot here, but I'll mind yer signals, Rube;

I ain't got no feelin's," was all Slim hollered back.

Through the roof, down the fire came

While he worked his levers, blisterin' like tar,

Blind and black, stickin' to the game

Till she'd made her landin', broad against the bar.

Someone then jumped across the side,

Dragged him from the fire and toted him ashore.

Might as well just have let it slide;

Slim was done with engines for good and evermore.

But he spoke, just 'fore he got through,

Lookin' at the people in a sort o' mild surprise--

"Don't thank me, and don't be sorry, too--

I ain't got no feelin's," said Slim, and closed his eyes.

THE "PAULINE"

|A MISSOURI tramp was the boat "Pauline"

An' she ran in '78;

She was warped in the hull an' broad o' beam,

An' her engines sizzled with wastin' steam,

An' a three-mile jog against the stream

Was her average runnin' gait.

Sing ho! fer the rickety "Pauline" maid,

The rottenest raft in the Bismarck trade,

An' her captain an' her mate.

The new "North Queen" come up in June,

Fresh launched from the Saint Joe ways,

As speedy a craft as the river'd float--

She could buck the bends like a big-horn goat--

An' she hauled astern o' that "Pauline" boat

On one o' them nice spring days.

Sing ho! fer the "Pauline," puffin' hard,

With her captain up on the starboard guard,

A-watchin' the "North Queen" raise.

The "Queen," she drew to the "Pauline's" wheel

An' her captain come a-bow;

"I'll give yeh three miles the lead," says he,

"An' beat yeh at that into Old Santee."

"Come on," says the "Pauline's" chief, "an' see!

I'm a-waitin' fer yeh now."

Sing ho! fer the captains, grim an' white

With the smothered hate of an old-time fight

An' the chance fer a new-time row.

So the sassy "Queen" strung out behind

An' let the distance spread,

Till the "Pauline" headed Ackley's Bend

An' herself come in at the lower end;

Then her slow-bell speed begun to mend

Fer the space that the old boat led.

Sing ho! fer the clerks an' the engineers

A-swabbin' the grease on the runnin' gears

An' settin' the stroke ahead.

Puff-puff! they went by the flat sand-bars,

Chug-chug! where the currents spun,

An' the "Pauline's" stokers were not to blame

Fer her tall, black stacks were spoutin' flame,

But the "Queen" crawled up on her, just the same,

Two miles to the "Pauline's" one.

Sing ho! fer the steam-chest's poundin' cough,

A-shakin' the nuts o' the guy-rods off

To the beat o' the piston's run.

The "Queen" pulled up on the old boat's beam

At the mouth o' Chouteau Creek,

An' the "Pauline's" captain stamped an' swore,

Fer the wood bulged out o' the furnace door,

An' the steam-gauge hissed with the load it bore,

But she couldn't do the trick.

Sing ho! fer the pilot at the wheel

A-shavin' the choals on a twelve-inch keel,

Enough to scare yeh sick.

The "Queen" was doin' her level best

An' she wasn't leadin' far--

Fer the "Pauline" stuck like a barber's leech--

But she let her siren whistle screech

When she led the way into Dodson's Reach,

Three miles from Santee Bar.

Sing ho! fer the "Pauline's" roustabout

A-rollin' the Bismarck cargo out,

Big barrels o' black pine tar.

The "Pauline's" chief was a sight to see

As he stood on the swingin' stage.

"I'll beat that pop-eyed levee-rat

If he banks his fires with bacon fat;

Pile in that tar an' let her scat

An' never mind the gauge!"

Sing ho! fer the boilers singein' red

An' the black smoke vomitin' overhead

From the furnace' flamin' rage.

An' she gained, that rattle-trap mud-scow did,

While her wake got white with spray,

An' forty rods from the landin'-plank

Her bow was a-beam o' the "North Queen's" flank

An' her pilot rushin' her fer the bank

To block the "North Queen's" way.

Sing ho! fer the boilers' burstin' roar

As they hurl them loose from the splittin' floor,

An' tear the decks away.

But the captain bold of the ex-"Pauline,"

He didn't stop a bit,

Fer he flew with the wreckage through the air,

An' fell on the landin', fair an' square,

An' the "Queen" run in an' found him there,

R'ared up from where he'd lit.

An' he yelled: "You rouster, I've won the race!

Go git a boat that can keep my pace,

Yer 'North Queen' doesn't fit!"

AFTERGLOW

(On the Missouri)

|TWILIGHT on the river, summer everywhere,

Prairie flowers perfuming the warm June air,

Breezes stirring softly on the high bluff's crest

Where stand a lad and maiden, looking toward the West.

Just a lad and maiden, standing, hand in hand,

While the lights are fading from the sunset's fairyland,

While on butte and buttress dies the crimson afterglow

And the mists creep upward from the river far below.

Down there in the valley house lights twinkle out,

Homeward-wending cattle low, laughing children shout,

While those two stand dreaming of another home to be,

Close beside the river, slipping swiftly toward the sea.

O, thou broad, strong river, rolling from the North,

Dost thou, too, see visions, from the centuries spun forth?

See a lad and maiden in some summer long ago

Gazing from the hilltop on the shadowed vale below?

Dusky, slender lovers, clasping hand in hand

While the tepee fires flicker down there on the strand--

Wild, unconquered children of the forest and the plain,

Dreaming, softly dreaming that same old dream again!

River of the Northland, in thy banks of living green,

Many are the visions that thy changing tides have seen,

Yet they came and vanished with Time's ceaseless onward flow,

Grew and bloomed and faded like the sunset's afterglow.

Only this was changeless in the centuries agone,

Only this will change not as the countless years speed on;

Ever to the hilltop, looking westward o'er the land

Will come some lad and maiden, dreaming, hand in hand;

In the twilight dreaming of a happy home to be

Beside thy restless waters, sweeping silent toward the sea,

Ever in the gloaming while time shall ebb and flow

Love will build its castles in the crimson afterglow.