Part 1
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SUN AND SADDLE LEATHER
BY BADGER CLARK
Illustrations from Photographs by L. A. HUFFMAN
THIRD EDITION
BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS
Copyright, 1915, 1917 and 1919 by Badger Clark
All Rights Reserved
MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
TO MY FATHER, _who, in his long life, has seldom been conscious of a man's rough exterior, or unconscious of his obscurest virtue._
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Cowboys are the sternest critics of those who would represent the West. No hypocrisy, no bluff, no pose can evade them.
Yet cowboys have made Badger Clark's songs their own. So readily have they circulated that often the man who sings the song could not tell you where it started. Many of the poems have become folk songs of the West, we may say of America, for they speak of freedom and the open.
Generous has been the praise given _Sun and Saddle Leather_, but perhaps no criticism has summed up the work so satisfactorily as the comment of the old cow man who said, "You can break me if there's a dead poem in the book, I read the hull of it. Who in H---- is this kid Clark, anyway? I don't know how he knowed, but he _knows_."
That is what proves Badger Clark the real poet. He knows. Beyond his wonderful presentation of the West is the quality of universal appeal that makes his work real art. He has tied the West to the universe.
The old cow man is not the only one who has wondered who Badger Clark was. Charles Wharton Stork speaking of _Sun and Saddle Leather_, said, "It has splendid flavor and fine artistic handling as well. I should like to know more of the author, whether he was a cow puncher or merely got inside his psychology by imagination."
Badger Clark was brought up in the West. As a boy he lived in Deadwood, South Dakota. The town at that time was trying to live down the reputation for exuberant indecorum which she had acquired during the gold rush; but her five churches operating two hours a week could make little headway against the competition of two dance halls and twenty-six saloons running twenty-four hours a day.
Perhaps it was these early impressions that make _The Piano at Red's_ in Mr. Clark's later volume _Grass Grown Trails_ so vivid.
Scuffling feet and thud of fists, Curses hot as fire-- Still the music sang of love, Longin', lost desire, Dreams that never could have been Joys that couldn't stay-- While the man upon the floor Wiped the blood away.
After Clark had grown up, in the cow country near the Mexican border, he stumbled unexpectedly into paradise. He was given charge of a small ranch and the responsibility for a bunch of cattle just large enough to amuse him, but too small to demand a full day's work once a month. The sky was persistently blue, the sunlight was richly golden, the folds of the barren mountains and the wide reaches of the range were full of many lovely colors, and his nearest neighbor was eight miles away.
The cow men who dropped in for a meal now and then in the course of their interminable riding appeared to have ridden directly out of books of adventure, with old-young faces full of sun wrinkles, careless mouths full of bad grammar, strange oaths and stranger yarns, and hearts for the most part as open and shadowless as the country they daily ranged.
In the evenings as Clark placed his boot heels on the porch railing, smote the strings of his guitar and broke the tense silence of the warm, dry twilight with song, he often wondered, as his eyes rested dreamily on the spikey yuccas that stood out sharp and black against the clear lemon color of the sunset west, why hermit life in the desert was traditionally a sad, penitential affair.
In a letter to his mother a month or two after settling in Arizona he found prose too weak to express his utter content and perpetrated his first verses. She, with natural pride, sent the verses to a magazine, the old _Pacific Monthly_, and a week or two later the desert dweller was astonished beyond measure to receive his first editorial check. The discovery that certain people in the world were willing to pay money for such rhymes as he could write bent the whole course of his subsequent life, for good or evil, and the occasional lyric impulse hardened into a habit which has consumed much of his time and most of his serious thought since that date. The verses written to his mother were _Ridin'_, the first poem in his first book, _Sun and Saddle Leather_, and the greater part of the poems in both _Sun and Saddle Leather_ and _Grass Grown Trails_ were written in Arizona.
_Sun and Saddle Leather_ and _Grass Grown Trails_ are books of Western songs, simple and ringing and yet with an ample vision that makes them unique among poems written in a local vernacular. The spirit of them is eternal, the spirit of youth in the open, and their background is "God's Reserves," the vast reach of Western mesa and plain that will always remain free--"the way that it was when the world was new."
Every poem carries a breath of plains, wind-flavored with a tang of camp smoke; and, varied as they are in tune and tone, they do not contain a single note that is labored or unnatural. They are of native Western stock, as indigenous to the soil as the agile cow ponies whose hoofs evidently beat the time for their swinging measures; and it is this quality, as well as their appealing music, that has already given them such wide popularity, East and West.
That they were born in the saddle and written for love rather than for publication is a conviction that the reader of them can hardly escape. From the impish merriment of _From Town_ to the deep but fearless piety of _The Cowboy's Prayer_, these songs ring true; and are as healthy as the big, bright country whence they came.
In 1917, about the time our first edition of _Sun and Saddle Leather_ began to run low, we fortunately discovered L. A. Huffman, of Miles City, Montana, the illustrator who in 1878 began taking photographs from the saddle with crude cameras he made over to meet his needs. These same views were the first of the now famous "Huffman Pictures," beginning with the Indians and buffaloes round about Ft. Keogh on the Yellowstone where he was post photographer for General Miles' army during those stirring territorial days. The Huffman Studio is still one of the show places of Miles City, and the sales headquarters also for Montana and adjacent states for both of Mr. Clark's books, _Sun and Saddle Leather_ and _Grass Grown Trails_. In a recent letter Mr. Huffman says, "I have just come back from a trip to 'Powder River' and along the Wyoming-Montana border. It's all too true! Clark saw and wrote it none too soon in _The Passing of the Trail_."
The trail's a lane, the trail's a lane. Dead is the branding fire. The prairies wild are tame and mild All close-corralled with wire. The sunburnt demigods who ranged And laughed and loved so free Have topped the last divide, or changed To men like you and me.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Ridin' 13 The Song of the Leather 16 A Bad Half Hour 19 From Town 22 A Cowboy's Prayer 26 The Christmas Trail 29 A Border Affair 33 The Bunk-House Orchestra 36 The Outlaw 40 The Legend of Boastful Bill 43 The Tied Maverick 48 A Roundup Lullaby 51 The Trail o' Love 55 Bachin' 58 The Glory Trail 61 Bacon 65 The Lost Pardner 67 God's Reserves 70 The Married Man 74 The Old Cow Man 78 The Plainsmen 82 The Westerner 86 The Wind is Blowin' 89 On Boot Hill 91
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_When the last free trail is a prim, fenced lane_ _And our graves grow weeds through forgetful Mays,_ _Richer and statelier then you'll reign,_ _Mother of men whom the world will praise._ _And your sons will love you and sigh for you,_ _Labor and battle and die for you,_ _But never the fondest will understand_ _The way we have loved you, young, young land._ --_Frontispiece._
FACING PAGE
_When my feet is in the stirrups_ _And my hawse is on the bust._ 14
_There's a time to be slow and a time to be quick._ 18
_We have gathered fightin' pointers from the famous bronco steed._ 24
_The taut ropes sing like a banjo string_ _And the latigoes creak and strain._ 40
_I wait to hear him ridin' up behind._ 68
_There's land where yet no ditchers dig_ _Nor cranks experiment;_ _It's only lovely, free and big_ _And isn't worth a cent._ 80
_Born of a free, world-wandering race_ _Little we yearned o'er an oft-turned sod._ 82
SUN AND SADDLE LEATHER
RIDIN'
There is some that likes the city-- Grass that's curried smooth and green, Theaytres and stranglin' collars, Wagons run by gasoline-- But for me it's hawse and saddle Every day without a change, And a desert sun a-blazin' On a hundred miles of range.
_Just a-ridin', a-ridin'--_ _Desert ripplin' in the sun,_ _Mountains blue along the skyline--_ _I don't envy anyone_ _When I'm ridin'._
When my feet is in the stirrups And my hawse is on the bust, With his hoofs a-flashin' lightnin' From a cloud of golden dust, And the bawlin' of the cattle Is a-coming' down the wind Then a finer life than ridin' Would be mighty hard to find.
_Just a-ridin, a-ridin'--_ _Splittin' long cracks through the air,_ _Stirrin' up a baby cyclone,_ _Rippin' up the prickly pear_ _As I'm ridin'._
I don't need no art exhibits When the sunset does her best, Paintin' everlastin' glory On the mountains to the west And your opery looks foolish When the night-bird starts his tune And the desert's silver mounted By the touches of the moon.
_Just a-ridin', a-ridin',_ _Who kin envy kings and czars_ _When the coyotes down the valley_ _Are a-singin' to the stars,_ _If he's ridin'?_
When my earthly trail is ended And my final bacon curled And the last great roundup's finished At the Home Ranch of the world I don't want no harps nor haloes, Robes nor other dressed up things-- Let me ride the starry ranges On a pinto hawse with wings!
_Just a-ridin', a-ridin'--_ _Nothin' I'd like half so well_ _As a-roundin' up the sinners_ _That have wandered out of Hell,_ _And a-ridin'._
THE SONG OF THE LEATHER
When my trail stretches out to the edge of the sky Through the desert so empty and bright, When I'm watchin' the miles as they go crawlin' by And a-hopin' I'll get there by night, Then my hawse never speaks through the long sunny day, But my saddle he sings in his creaky old way:
"_Easy--easy--easy--_ _For a temperit pace ain't a crime._ _Let your mount hit it steady, but give him his ease,_ _For the sun hammers hard and there's never a breeze._ _We kin get there in plenty of time._"
When I'm after some critter that's hit the high lope, And a-spurrin' my hawse till he flies, When I'm watchin' the chances for throwin' my rope And a-winkin' the sweat from my eyes, Then the leathers they squeal with the lunge and the swing And I work to the livelier tune that they sing:
"_Reach 'im! reach 'im! reach 'im!_ _If you lather your hawse to the heel!_ _There's a time to be slow and a time to be quick;_ _Never mind if it's rough and the bushes are thick--_ _Pull your hat down and fling in the steel!_"
When I've rustled all day till I'm achin' for rest And I'm ordered a night-guard to ride, With the tired little moon hangin' low in the west And my sleepiness fightin' my pride, Then I nod and I blink at the dark herd below And the saddle he sings as my hawse paces slow:
"_Sleepy--sleepy--sleepy--_ _We was ordered a close watch to keep,_ _But I'll sing you a song in a drowsy old key;_ _All the world is a-snoozin' so why shouldn't we?_ _Go to sleep, pardner mine, go to sleep._"
A BAD HALF HOUR
Wonder why I feel so restless; Moon is shinin' still and bright, Cattle all is restin' easy, But I just kaint sleep tonight. Ain't no cactus in my blankets, Don't know why they feel so hard-- 'Less it's Warblin' Jim a-singin' "Annie Laurie" out on guard.
"Annie Laurie"--wish he'd quit it! Couldn't sleep now if I tried. Makes the night seem big and lonesome, And my throat feels sore inside. How _my_ Annie used to sing it! And it sounded good and gay Nights I drove her home from dances When the east was turnin' gray.
Yes, "her brow was like the snowdrift" And her eyes like quiet streams, "And her face"--I still kin see it Much too frequent in my dreams; And her hand was soft and trembly That night underneath the tree, When I couldn't help but tell her She was "all the world to me."
But her folks said I was "shif'less," "Wild," "unsettled,"--they was right, For I leaned to punchin' cattle And I'm at it still tonight. And she married young Doc Wilkins-- Oh my Lord! but that was hard! Wish that fool would quit his singin' "Annie Laurie" out on guard!
Oh, I just kaint stand it thinkin' Of the things that happened then. Good old times, and all apast me! Never seem to come again-- My turn? Sure. I'll come a-runnin'. Warm me up some coffee, pard-- But I'll stop that Jim from singin' "Annie Laurie" out on guard.
FROM TOWN
We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men, But we had to come to town to get the mail. And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then-- All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail. Shorty's nose won't bear paradin', Bill's off eye is darkly fadin', All our toilets show a touch of disarray, For we found that city life is a constant round of strife And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray.
Chant your warwhoop, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun' For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town!
We acquired our hasty temper from our friend, the centipede. From the rattlesnake we learnt to guard our rights. We have gathered fightin' pointers from the famous bronco steed And the bobcat teached us reppertee that bites. So when some high-collared herrin' jeered the garb that I was wearin' 'Twas't long till we had got where talkin' ends, And he et his illbred chat, with a sauce of derby hat, While my merry pardners entertained his friends.
Sing 'er out, my buckeroos! Let the desert hear the news. Tell the stars the way we rubbed the haughty down. We're the fiercest wolves a-prowlin' and it's just our night for howlin' When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town.
Since the days that Lot and Abram split the Jordan range in halves, Just to fix it so their punchers wouldn't fight, Since old Jacob skinned his dad-in-law for six years' crop of calves And then hit the trail for Canaan in the night, There has been a taste for battle 'mong the men that follow cattle And a love of doin' things that's wild and strange, And the warmth of Laban's words when he missed his speckled herds Still is useful in the language of the range.
Sing 'er out, my bold coyotes! leather fists and leather throats, For we wear the brand of Ishm'el like a crown. We're the sons o' desolation, we're the outlaws of creation-- Ee--yow! a-ridin' up the rocky trail from town!
A COWBOY'S PRAYER
(_Written for Mother_)
Oh Lord. I've never lived where churches grow. I love creation better as it stood That day You finished it so long ago And looked upon Your work and called it good. I know that others find You in the light That's sifted down through tinted window panes, And yet I seem to feel You near tonight In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.
I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well, That You have made my freedom so complete; That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell, Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street. Just let me live my life as I've begun And give me work that's open to the sky; Make me a pardner of the wind and sun, And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.
Let me be easy on the man that's down; Let me be square and generous with all. I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town, But never let 'em say I'm mean or small! Make me as big and open as the plains, As honest as the hawse between my knees, Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains, Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget. You know about the reasons that are hid. You understand the things that gall and fret; You know me better than my mother did. Just keep an eye on all that's done and said And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside, And guide me on the long, dim trail ahead That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.
THE CHRISTMAS TRAIL
The wind is blowin' cold down the mountain tips of snow And 'cross the ranges layin' brown and dead; It's cryin' through the valley trees that wear the mistletoe And mournin' with the gray clouds overhead. Yet it's sweet with the beat of my little hawse's feet And I whistle like the air was warm and blue, For I'm ridin' up the Christmas trail to you, Old folks, I'm a-ridin' up the Christmas trail to you.
Oh, mebbe it was good when the whinny of the Spring Had wheedled me to hoppin' of the bars, And livin' in the shadow of a sailin' buzzard's wing And sleepin' underneath a roof of stars. But the bright campfire light only dances for a night, While the home-fire burns forever clear and true, So 'round the year I circle back to you, Old folks, 'Round the rovin' year I circle back to you.
Oh, mebbe it was good when the reckless Summer sun Had shot a charge of fire through my veins, And I milled around the whiskey and the fightin' and the fun 'Mong the other mav'ricks drifted from the plains. Ay! the pot bubbled hot, while you reckoned I'd forgot, And the devil smacked the young blood in his stew, Yet I'm lovin' every mile that's nearer you, Good folks, Lovin' every blessed mile that's nearer you.
Oh, mebbe it was good at the roundup in the Fall When the clouds of bawlin' dust before us ran, And the pride of rope and saddle was a-drivin' of us all To a stretch of nerve and muscle, man and man. But the pride sort of died when the man got weary eyed; 'Twas a sleepy boy that rode the night-guard through, And he dreamed himself along a trail to you, Old folks, Dreamed himself along a happy trail to you.
The coyote's Winter howl cuts the dusk behind the hill, But the ranch's shinin' window I kin see, And though I don't deserve it and, I reckon, never will, There'll be room beside the fire kep' for me. Skimp my plate 'cause I'm late. Let me hit the old kid gait, For tonight I'm stumblin' tired of the new And I'm ridin' up the Christmas trail to you, Old folks, I'm a-ridin' up the Christmas trail to you.
A BORDER AFFAIR
Spanish is the lovin' tongue, Soft as music, light as spray. 'Twas a girl I learnt it from, Livin' down Sonora way. I don't look much like a lover, Yet I say her love words over Often when I'm all alone-- "Mi amor, mi corazon."
Nights when she knew where I'd ride She would listen for my spurs, Fling the big door open wide, Raise them laughin' eyes of hers And my heart would nigh stop beatin' When I heard her tender greetin', Whispered soft for me alone-- "Mi amor! mi corazon!"
Moonlight in the patio, Old Senora noddin' near, Me and Juana talkin' low So the Madre couldn't hear-- How those hours would go a-flyin'! And too soon I'd hear her sighin' In her little sorry tone-- "Adios, mi corazon!"
But one time I had to fly For a foolish gamblin' fight, And we said a swift goodbye In that black, unlucky night. When I'd loosed her arms from clingin' With her words the hoofs kep' ringin' As I galloped north alone-- "Adios, mi corazon!"
Never seen her since that night. I kaint cross the Line, you know. She was Mex and I was white; Like as not it's better so. Yet I've always sort of missed her Since that last wild night I kissed her, Left her heart and lost my own-- "Adios, mi corazon!"
THE BUNK-HOUSE ORCHESTRA
Wrangle up your mouth-harps, drag your banjo out, Tune your old guitarra till she twangs right stout, For the snow is on the mountains and the wind is on the plain, But we'll cut the chimney's moanin' with a livelier refrain.
_Shinin' 'dobe fireplace, shadows on the wall--_ _(See old Shorty's friv'lous toes a-twitchin' at the call:)_ _It's the best grand high that there is within the law_ _When seven jolly punchers tackle "Turkey in the Straw."_
Freezy was the day's ride, lengthy was the trail, Ev'ry steer was haughty with a high arched tail, But we held 'em and we shoved 'em, for our longin' hearts were tried By a yearnin' for tobacker and our dear fireside.