Part 2

Sought a cooler place to chat,

But they didn't know they'd left me with a bullet in my thigh!

But the redskins understood--

Bet your life they always would!--

And they came a-lopin' downward for this short-hair scalp of mine,

While I wondered how I'd be

"Soldier a la fricassee,"

For I didn't know my Texan hadn't bolted with the line,

Till I heard a crunchin' sound,

And when I looked around,

With the reins against his ankles, there that blaze-face rascal stood!

He was shiverin' with fright,

But he hadn't moved a mite,

For he'd never learned to travel till I told him that he should.

And he stayed, that Texan did,

Till I'd crawled and rolled and slid

Down beside him in the hollow and the stirrup-strap could find,

And I somehow reached the saddle

And hung on--I couldn't straddle--

While he galloped for the squadron with the Sioux strung out behind.

Oh, the horses from the range,

They've got hearts; it isn't strange

If they raise a little Hades when the drill gets hot and fast;

But I'd like to see a chart

Of the automobile cart

That will save a man on purpose when the shots are singin' past.

Now, the boys in blue, you bet,

Earn whatever praise they get,

But they're not the only ones who never lag,

For the good old Yankee horses,

They are always with the forces

When the battle-smoke is curling round the flag!

And I don't believe the men

Who make drawings with a pen

Can ever build a thing of cranks and wheels

That will starve and work and fight,

Summer, winter, day or night.

Like that same old, game old horse that thinks and feels.

A KHAKI KICK

|BACK there in Washington, people may stare,

Easy-chair officers sputter and swear,

Bureaucrats legislate--what do we care?

Down in the ranks we don't follow the styles;

Here's health to the General, Nelson A. Miles!

I've been readin' in the papers and I'm feelin' pretty mad

At the shabby sort of treatment that a game old soldier's had.

And the soldier I'm referrin' to, who's so surprisin' game,

Is Miles, Lieutenant General--I guess you've heard the name?

Now, the pointers that a twelve-year duty sergeant hasn't got

On the secrets of the Service, are a quite extensive lot;

But he may make observations, while a-wearin' out his shoes,

Not just in strict accordance with the War Department's views.

I've seen some bits of service of a somewhat stirrin' brand

When the West was callin' lusty for a civilizin' hand,

And, myself, I've had some practice in that missionary work

With the men who did the business, from the buttes to Albuquerq'.

They've sent some stunnin' strategists, so history records,

To show the noble red man how the Nation loves its wards,

And some was politicians, and some was soft of heart,

And some was full of ginger, but couldn't make a start.

But the man who knew his business as the king-bird knows the hawk;

Who started with the rifle and finished with the talk;

Who wouldn't stop for bluffin' when he once got started right,

Was him I'm tellin' you about--you bet he came to fight!

I know he's no West Pointer--I've a notion, what is more,

That it isn't only Pointers who may-know the game of war,

And if he's a little partial to the medals on his chest

He's got a darned good right to be; he earned 'em in the West.

For I've follered him in winter through those blamed Montana snows

When the hills was stiff as granite and the very air was froze,

And seen him ridin' out in front to lead the double-quick

When the lines went into action on the banks of Rosebud Creek.

I've lurched across the Painted Plains, my temples like to burst,

And seen men suckin' out their veins to quench their burnin' thirst,

With the sky a blazin' furnace and the earth a bakin' sea,

And he was there beside us--and was just as dry as we.

Oh, hang these army politics, when jealousy and spite

Can rob a veteran of his praise, his dearest, hard-earned right!

There's just one kind of officer enlisted men can like--

The kind who keeps his bearings when the shots begin to strike.

And that's the kind that Miles has been; he never ducked or flinched;

He was always in the mix-up when the lines of battle clinched;

He's whipped out Rebs and redskins and he's made some Dagos dance,

And he's good for lots more fightin' if he ever gets the chance.

And here's the moral to this talk--I'll ask no price, but thanks:

Miles may not have a stand-in, but he's solid with the ranks!

Back there in Washington, people may stare,

Easy-chair officers sputter and swear,

Bureaucrats legislate--what do we care?

Down in the ranks we don't follow the styles;

Here's a health to the General, Nelson A. Miles!

SERGEANT NOONAN EXPLAINS

|JAMES Noonan, private, 'B' Troop, made sergeant on the field

For leading charge on hostiles, compelling them to yield."

That's the way the record reads, but, sure, it isn't so;

Ye mind, I'm Sergeant Noonan and I guess I ought to know!

I'll tell ye how it happened, dead straight, without no frills.

We'd tracked a Cheyenne war-band clean through the Blacksnake Hills,

Till, on the march one mornin', they jumped us from the right,

Three hundred bucks in war-paint, well armed and full of fight.

We'd fifty men in column--no time to close a rank--

We yanked our horses sideways and fired by the flank,

But, though we volleyed through 'em and dropped the foremost ones,

The rest came on like devils, right up against our guns.

Now half our boys were rookies who'd never smelt a fight;

The yappin' Cheyenne war-whoop just turned 'em blue with fright.

They started breakin' column and first we veterans knew,

The troop had gone to blazes and let the redskins through.

The sergeants clubbed their carbines, the Captain prayed and swore;

It didn't stop the rookies; they wouldn't stand for more.

Then a bullet caught my mustang and ploughed him underneath

And he bolted toward the hostiles with the bit between his teeth.

Thinks I, "Here's good-bye, Jimmie; but I'll make these heathen grunt,"

So I grabbed my Colt and opened as we sailed into their front.

But they cleared a passage for me and I couldn't trust my eyes

When their outfit broke and scattered, scootin' back across the rise.

Then I turned and, there behind me, all strung out along my trail,

Came the boys of "B" Troop, ridin' like a sizzin' comet's tail,

With their horses at the gallop and revolvers poppin' gay

For they thought I'd led a rally when my mustang ran away!

So that's the way it happened, in brief, without no frills,

That day the Cheyennes jumped us among the Blacksnake Hills,

Which is why I claim the chevrons that I'm sportin' on my sleeve

Was won by my old mustang and dead against my leave.

LARAMIE TRAIL

|ACROSS the crests of the naked hills,

Smooth-swept by the winds of God,

It cleaves its way like a shaft of gray,

Close-bound by the prairie sod.

It stretches flat from the sluggish Platte To the lands of forest shade;

The clean trail, the lean trail,

The trail the troopers made.

It draws aside with a wary curve

From the lurking, dark ravine,

It launches fair as a lance in air

O'er the raw-ribbed ridge between:

With never a wait it plunges straight

Through river or reed-grown brook;

The deep trail, the steep trail,

The trail the squadrons took.

They carved it well, those men of old,

Stern lords of the border war,

They wrought it out with their sabres stout

And marked it with their gore.

They made it stand as an iron band

Along the wild frontier;

The strong trail, the long trial,

The trail of force and fear.

For the stirring note of the bugle's throat

Ye may hark to-day in vain,

For the track is scarred by the gang-plow's shard

And gulfed in the growing grain.

But wait to-night for the moonrise white;

Perchance ye may see them tread

The lost trail, the ghost trail,

The trail of the gallant dead.

'Twixt cloud and cloud o'er the pallid moon

From the nether dark they glide

And the grasses sigh as they rustle by

Their phantom steeds astride.

By four and four as they rode of yore

And well they know the way;

The dim trail, the grim trail,

The trail of toil and fray.

With tattered guidons spectral thin

Above their swaying ranks,

With carbines swung and sabres slung

And the gray dust on their flanks.

They march again as they marched it then

When the red men dogged their track,

The gloom trail, the doom trail,

The trail they came not back.

They pass, like a flutter of drifting fog,

As the hostile tribes have passed,

As the wild-wing'd birds and the bison herds

And the unfenced prairies vast,

And those who gain by their strife and pain

Forget, in the land they won,

The red trail, the dead trail,

The trail of duty done.

But to him who loves heroic deeds

The far-flung path still bides,

The bullet sings and the war-whoop rings

And the stalwart trooper rides.

For they were the sort from Snelling Fort

Who traveled fearlessly

The bold trail, the old trail,

The trail to Laramie.

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.