{ "id": "john-g-neihardt/the-song-of-three-friends", "title": "The Song of Three Friends", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "John G. Neihardt", "poet_slug": "john-g-neihardt", "language": "en", "book": "A Cycle of the West", "book_slug": "a-cycle-of-the-west", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 1, "container": "The Song of Three Friends", "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1919, "venue": "The Song of Three Friends (1919)", "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/songthree00neihrich" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/john-g-neihardt_a-cycle-of-the-west", "file": "the-song-of-three-friends.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://archive.org/details/songthree00neihrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000673224", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53667", "https://archive.org/details/songofhughglass00neih", "https://archive.org/details/bp_574832" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-20" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 2860, "n_stanzas": 201, "n_parts": 8, "longest_line_chars": 57, "max_indent": 9 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [ { "ordinal": "I", "title": "Ashley’s Hundred", "stanza_range": [ 0, 6 ] }, { "ordinal": "II", "title": "The Up-Stream Men", "stanza_range": [ 6, 44 ] }, { "ordinal": "III", "title": "To the Musselshell", "stanza_range": [ 44, 59 ] }, { "ordinal": "IV", "title": "The Net Is Cast", "stanza_range": [ 59, 75 ] }, { "ordinal": "V", "title": "The Quarrel", "stanza_range": [ 75, 106 ] }, { "ordinal": "VI", "title": "The Shooting of the Cup", "stanza_range": [ 106, 135 ] }, { "ordinal": "VII", "title": "The Third Rider", "stanza_range": [ 135, 165 ] }, { "ordinal": "VIII", "title": "Vengeance", "stanza_range": [ 165, 201 ] } ], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "Who now reads clear the roster of that band?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alas, Time scribbles with a careless hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And often pinchbeck doings from that pen", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bite deep, where deeds and dooms of mighty men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are blotted out beneath a sordid scrawl!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "One hundred strong they flocked to Ashley’s call", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That spring of eighteen hundred twenty-two;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For tales of wealth, out-legending Peru,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came wind-blown from Missouri’s distant springs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that old sireny of unknown things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bewitched them, and they could not linger more.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They heard the song the sea winds sang the shore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When earth was flat, and black ships dared the steep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where bloomed the purple perils of the deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In dragon-haunted gardens. They were young.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Albeit some might feel the winter flung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon their heads, ’twas less like autumn’s drift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than backward April’s unregarded sift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On stout oaks thrilling with the sap again.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some had scarce attained the height of men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their lips unroughed, and gleaming in their eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The light of immemorial surprise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That life still kept the spaciousness of old", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like the hoarded tales their grandsires told,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might still run bravely.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For a little span", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their life-fires flared like torches in the van", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of westward progress, ere the great wind ’woke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To snuff them. Many vanished like a smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blue air drinks; and e’en of those who burned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Down to the socket, scarce a tithe returned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To share at last the ways of quiet men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or see the hearth-reek drifting once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the roofs of old St. Louis town.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now no more the mackinaws come down,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their gunwales low with costly packs and bales,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wind of wonder in their shabby sails,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their homing oars flung rhythmic to the tide;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nevermore the masted keelboats ride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Missouri’s stubborn waters on the lone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Long zigzag journey to the Yellowstone.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their hulks have found the harbor ways that know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ships of all the Sagas, long ago⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A moony haven where no loud gale stirs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trappers and the singing voyageurs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are comrades now of Jason and his crew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Foregathered in that timeless rendezvous", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where come at last all seekers of the Fleece.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Not now of those who, dying, dropped in peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A brimming cup of years the song shall be:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From Mississippi to the Western Sea,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From Britain’s country to the Rio Grande", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their names are written deep across the land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In pass and trail and river, like a rune.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Pore long upon that roster by the moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of things remembered dimly. Tangled, blear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The writing runs; yet presently appear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three names of men that, spoken, somehow seem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Incantatory trumpets of a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Obscurely blowing from the hinter-gloom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of these and that inexorable doom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That followed like a hound upon the scent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here runs the tale.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "When Major Henry went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Up river at the head of Ashley’s band,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already there were robins in the land.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Home-keeping men were following the plows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through the smoke-thin greenery of boughs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The scattering wild-fire of the fruit bloom ran.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Behold them starting northward, if you can.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dawn flares across the Mississippi’s tide;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A tumult runs along the waterside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where, scenting an event, St. Louis throngs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the buzzling voices soar the songs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of waiting boatmen⁠—lilting chansonettes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereof the meaning laughs, the music frets,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nigh weeping that such gladness can not stay.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In turn, the herded horses snort and neigh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like panic bugles. Up the gangplanks poured,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Go streams of trappers, rushing goods aboard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The snub-built keelboats, squat with seeming sloth⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Baled three-point blankets, blue and scarlet cloth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rum, powder, flour, guns, gauderies and lead.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all about, goodbyes are being said.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gauche girls with rainy April in their gaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cling to their beardless heroes, count the days", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between this parting and the wedding morn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unwitting how unhuman Fate may scorn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The youngling dream. For O how many a lad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would see the face of Danger, and go mad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With her weird vixen beauty; aye, forget", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This girl’s face, yearning upward now and wet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half woman’s with the first vague guess at woe!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now commands are bellowed, boat horns blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Haughtily in the dawn; the tumult swells.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tow-crews, shouldering the long cordelles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slack from the mastheads, lean upon the sag.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The keelboats answer lazily and drag", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their blunt prows slowly in the gilded tide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A steersman sings, and up the riverside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gay contagious ditty spreads and runs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the shouts, the uproar of the guns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The nickering of horses.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So, they say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went forth a hundred singing men that day;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And girlish April went ahead of them.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The music of her trailing garment’s hem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed scarce a league ahead. A little speed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might yet almost surprise her in the deed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sorcery; for, ever as they strove,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gray-green smudge in every poplar grove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Proclaimed the recent kindling. Aye, it seemed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That bird and bush and tree had only dreamed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of song and leaf and blossom, till they heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The young men’s feet; when tree and bush and bird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unleashed the whole conspiracy of awe!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pale green was every slough about the Kaw;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the Platte, pale green was every slough;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still the pale green lingered at the Sioux,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So close they trailed the marching of the South.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when they reached the Niobrara’s mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The witchery of spring had taken flight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like a girl grown woman over night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Young summer glowed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now the river rose,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gigantic from a feast of northern snows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And mightily the snub prows felt the tide;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But with the loud, sail-filling South allied,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tow-crews battled gaily day by day;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And seldom lulled the struggle on the way", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But some light jest availed to fling along", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The panting lines the laughter of the strong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For joy sleeps lightly in the hero’s mood.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the sky-wide prairie solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was darkened round them, and the camp was set", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Secure for well-earned sleep that came not yet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What stories shaped for marvel or for mirth!⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tales fit to strain the supper-tightened girth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Looped yarns, wherein the veteran spinners vied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To color with a lie more glorified", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some thread that had veracity enough,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spun straightway out of life’s own precious stuff", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That each had scutched and heckled in the raw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then thinner grew each subsequent guffaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While drowsily the story went the rounds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And o’er the velvet dark the summer sounds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prevailed in weird crescendo more and more,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the story-teller with a snore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gave over to a dream a tale half told.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now the horseguards, while the night grows old,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With intermittent singing buffet sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That surges subtly down the starry deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On waves of odor from the manless miles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of summer-haunted prairie. Now, at whiles,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The kiote’s mordant clamor cleaves the drowse.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The horses stamp and blow; about the prows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dark waters chug and gurgle; as with looms", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bugs weave a drone; a beaver’s diving booms,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat bluffs grumble in their sable cowls.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The devil laughter of the prairie owls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mocks mirth anon, like unrepentant sin.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perceptibly at last slow hours wear thin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The east, until the prairie stares with morn,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And horses nicker to the boatman’s horn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That blares the music of a day begun.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So through the days of thunder and of sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They pressed to northward. Now the river shrank,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The grass turned yellow and the men were lank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gnarled with labor. Smooth-lipped lads matured", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twixt moon and moon with all that they endured,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their faces leathered by the wind and glare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their eyes grown ageless with the calm far stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of men who know the prairies or the seas.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when they reached the village of the Rees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One scarce might say, This man is young, this old,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save for the beard.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here loitered days of gold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And days of leisure, welcome to the crews;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For recently had come the wondrous news", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of beaver-haunts beyond the Great Divide⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So rich a tale ’twould seem the tellers lied,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had they not much fine peltry to attest.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So now the far off River of the West", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Became the goal of venture for the band;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And since the farther trail lay overland", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where the Great Falls thundered to no ear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They paused awhile to buy more ponies here", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With powder, liquor, gauds and wily words.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A horse-fond people, opulent in herds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Rees were; and the trade was very good.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now camped along the river-fringing wood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three sullen, thunder-brewing, rainless days,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those weathered men made merry in their ways", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With tipple, euchre, story, jest and song.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The marksmen matched their cleverness; the strong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wrestled the strong; and brawling pugilists", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Displayed the boasted power of their fists", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In stubborn yet half amicable fights.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whisky went hell-roaring through the nights", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the lodges of the fuddled Rees.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus merrily the trappers took their ease,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rejoicing in the thread that Clotho spun;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For it was good to feel the bright thread run,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "However eager for the snipping shears.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "O joy long stifled in the ruck of years!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How many came to strange and bitter ends!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And who was merrier than those three friends", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whom here a song remembers for their woe?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Will Carpenter, Mike Fink and Frank Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were they⁠—each gotten of a doughty breed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For in the blood of them the ancient seed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Saxon, Celt and Norman grew again.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Mississippi reared no finer men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rarely the Ohio knew their peers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For pluck and prowess⁠—even in those years", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When stern life yielded suck but to the strong.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor in the hundred Henry took along", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was found their match⁠—and each man knew it well.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For instance, when it suited Mike to tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A tale that called for laughter, as he thought,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hearer laughed right heartily, or fought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And took a drubbing. Then, if more complained,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those three lacked not for logic that explained", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The situation in no doubtful way.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Me jokes are always funny” Mike would say;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And most men freely granted that they were.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A lanky, rangy man was Carpenter,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quite six feet two from naked heel to crown;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, though crow-lean, he brought the steelyard down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With twice a hundred notched upon the bar.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor was he stooped, as tali men often are;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A cedar of a man, he towered straight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One might have judged him lumbering of gait,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he was still; but when he walked or ran,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He stepped it lightly like a little man⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And such a one is very good to see.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not his the tongue for quip or repartee;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His wit seemed slow; and something of the child", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came o’er his rough-hewn features, when he smiled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To mock the perching brow and eagle nose.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas when he fought the true import of those", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew clear, though even then his mien deceived;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For less in wrath, he seemed, than mildly grieved⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which made his blows no whit less true or hard.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His hair was flax fresh gleaming from the card;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His eyes, the flax in bloom.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A match in might,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink lacked five inches of his comrade’s height,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And of his weight scarce twenty pounds, they say.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His hair was black, his small eyes greenish gray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And restless as though feeling out of place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In such a jocund plenilunar face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seemed made just for laughter. Then one saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pert pugnacious nose, the forward jaw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The breadth of stubborn cheekbones, and one knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That jest and fight to him were scarcely two,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But rather shifting phases of the joy", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He felt in living. Careless as a boy,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Free handed with a gift or with a blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And giving either unto friend or foe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With frank good will, no man disliked him long.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They say his voice could glorify a song,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "However loutish might the burden be;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all the way from Pittsburg to the sea", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Rabelaisian stories of the rogue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran wedded to the richness of his brogue.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wheresoever boatmen came to drink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There someone broached some escapade of Fink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That well might fill the goat-hoofed with delight;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Mike, the pantagruelizing wight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was happy in the health of bone and brawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And had the code and conscience of the faun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To guide him blithely down the easy way.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A questionable hero, one might say:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so indeed, by any civil law.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Moreover, at first glimpse of him one saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bull-necked fellow, seeming over stout;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tremendous at a heavy lift, no doubt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But wanting action. By the very span", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of chest and shoulders, one misjudged the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he was clothed. But when he stripped to swim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Men flocked about to have a look at him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Moved vaguely by that body’s wonder-scheme", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein the shape of God’s Adamic dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was victor over stubborn dust again!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "O very lovely is a maiden, when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old creative thrill is set astir", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along her blood, and all the flesh of her", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is shapen as to music! Fair indeed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A tall horse, lean of flank, clean-limbed for speed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep-chested for endurance! Very fair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A soaring tree, aloof in violet air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a hill! And ’tis a glorious thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see a bank-full river in the spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fight homeward! Children wonderful to see⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Girl, the Horse, the River and the Tree⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As any suckled at the breast of sod;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dissolving symbols leading back to God", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through vista after vista of the Plan!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But surely none is fairer than a man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In whom the lines of might and grace are one.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Bronzed with exposure to the wind and sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behold the splendid creature that was Fink!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You see him strolling to the river’s brink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All ease, and yet tremendously alive.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He pauses, poised on tiptoe for the dive,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And momently it seems the mother mud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quick with a mystic seed whose sap is blood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mysteriously rears a human flower.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clean as a windless flame the lines of power", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Run rhythmic up the stout limbs, muscle-laced,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Athwart the ropy gauntness of the waist,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The huge round girth of chest, whereover spread", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Enormous shoulders. Now above his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He lifts his arms where big thews merge and flow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As in some dream of Michelangelo;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And up along the dimpling back there run,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like lazy serpents stirring in the sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slow waves that break and pile upon the slope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of that great neck in swelling rolls, agrope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the velvet softness of the skin.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now suddenly the lean waist grows more thin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deep chest on a sudden grows more deep;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with the swiftness of a tiger’s leap,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The easy grace of hawks in swooping flight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That terrible economy of might", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And beauty plunges outward from the brink.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus God had made experiment with Fink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As proving how ’twere best that men might grow.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "One turned from Mike to look upon Talbeau⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little man, scarce five feet six and slim⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wondered what his comrades saw in him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To justify their being thus allied.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was it a sort of planetary pride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In lunar adoration? Hark to Mike:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Shure I declare I niver saw his like⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A skinny whiffet of a man! And yit⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Well, do ye moind the plisint way we mit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how he interjooced hisself that day?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas up at Pittsburg, liquor flowin’ fray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ivrybody happy as a fool.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I cracked me joke and thin, as is me rule,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Looked round to view the havoc of me wit;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ivrywan was doubled up wid it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save only wan, and him a scrubby mite.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Says I, and shure me language was polite,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘And did ye hear me little joke?’ says I.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘I did’ says he. ‘And can’t ye laugh, me b’y?’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "‘I can’t’ says he, the sassy little chap.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did I git me hand back from the slap", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I give him till he landed on me glim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I was countin’ siventeen of him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ivry dancin’ wan of him was air!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Faith, whin I hit him he was niver there;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shure it seemed that ivry wind that blew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was peltin’ knuckles in me face. Hurroo!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That toime, fer wance, I got me fill of fun!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "God bless the little whiffet! It begun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along about the shank of afthernoon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whin I washed me face, I saw the moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A-shakin’ wid its laughther in the shtrame.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whin, betoimes, he wakened from his drame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I says to him, ‘Ye needn’t laugh, me b’y:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A cliver little man ye are,’ says I.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Och, the face of me! I’m tellin’ fac’s⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ye’d wonder did he do it wid an ax!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas foine! ’Twas art!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus, eloquent with pride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike Fink, an expert witness, testified", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Talbeau’s fistic prowess.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now they say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There lived no better boatmen in their day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than those three comrades; and the larger twain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In that wide land three mighty rivers drain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Found not their peers for skill in marksmanship.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Writes one, who made the long Ohio trip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With those boon cronies in their palmy days,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How once Mike Fink beheld a sow at graze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the bank amid her squealing brood;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how Mike, being in a merry mood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shot off each wiggling piglet’s corkscrew tail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At twenty yards, while under easy sail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The boat moved on. And Carpenter could bore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A squirrel’s eye clean at thirty steps and more⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So many say. But ’twas their dual test", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of mutual love and skill they liked the best", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of all their shooting tricks⁠—when one stood up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At sixty paces with a whisky cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Set brimming for a target on his head,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And felt the gusty passing of the lead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hot from the other’s rifle, lift his hair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever was the tin cup smitten fair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By each, to prove the faith of each anew:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For ’twas a rite of love between the two,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And not a mere capricious feat of skill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Och, shure, and can ye shoot the whisky, Bill?”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Mike would end a wrangle. “Damn it, Fink!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let’s bore a pair of cups and have a drink!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Carpenter would stop a row grown stale.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And neither feared that either love might fail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or either skill might falter.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus appear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The doughty three who held each other dear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For qualities they best could comprehend.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now came the days of leisure to an end⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The days so gaily squandered, that would seem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To men at length made laughterless, a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unthinkably remote; for Ilion held", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath her sixfold cerement of Eld", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seems not so hoar as bygone joy we prize", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In evil days. Now vaguely pale the skies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The glimmer neither starlight’s nor the morn’s.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A rude ironic merriment of horns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Startles the men yet heavy with carouse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sets a Ree dog mourning in the drowse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snout skyward from a lodge top. Sleepy birds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Chirp in the brush. A drone of sullen words", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Awakes and runs increasing through the camp.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thin smoke plumes, rising in the valley damp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flatten among the leathern tents and make", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The whole encampment like a ghostly lake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where bobbing heads of swimmers come and go,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with the whimsy of an undertow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That sucks and spews them. Raising dust and din,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The horseguards drive their shaggy rabble in", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From nightlong grazing. Voyageurs, with packs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of folded tents and camp gear on their backs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slouch boatward through the reek. But when prevails", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The smell of frying pans and coffee pails,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They cease to sulk and, greatly heartened, sing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till ponies swell the chorus, nickering,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And race-old comrades jubilate as one.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Out of a roseless dawn the heat-pale sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beheld them toiling northward once again⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hundred horses and a hundred men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hushed in a windless swelter. Day on day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The same white dawn overtook them on their way;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And daylong in the white glare sang no bird,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But only shrill grasshoppers clicked and whirred,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the heat were vocal. All the while", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dwindling current lengthened, mile on mile,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Meandrous in a labyrinth of sand.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now e’er they left the Ree town by the Grand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The revellers had seen the spent moon roam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The morning, like a tipsy hag bound home.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bubble-laden boat, they saw it sail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sunset river of a fairy tale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When they were camped beside the Cannonball.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A spectral sun, it held the dusk in thrall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nightlong about the Heart. The stars alone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the cluttered Mandan lodges shone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The night they slept below the Knife. And when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their course, long westward, shifted once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To lead them north, the August moon was new.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The rainless Southwest wakened now and blew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wilting, worrying, breath-sucking gale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That roared one moment in the bellied sail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Next moment slackened to a lazy croon.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now came the first misfortune. All forenoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With line and pole the sweating boatmen strove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the east bank, while the horseguards drove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The drooping herd a little to the fore.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the current took the other shore.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Straight on, a maze of bar and shallow lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The main stream running half a mile away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To westward of a long low willow isle.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An hour they fought that stubborn half a mile", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of tumbled water. Down the running planks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The polesmen toiled in endless slanting ranks.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now swimming, now a-flounder in the ooze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some blind bar, the naked cordelle crews", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sought any kind of footing for a pull;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While gust-bedevilled sails, now booming full,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now flapping slack, gave questionable aid.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The west bank gained, along a ragged shade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of straggling cottonwoods the boatmen sprawled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And panted. Out across the heat-enthralled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wind-fretted waste of shoal and bar they saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The string of ponies ravelled up a draw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That mounted steeply eastward from the vale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where, like a rampart flung across the trail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bluff rose sheer. Heads low, yet loath to graze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They waxed and withered in the oily haze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now ponies, now a crawling flock of sheep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behind them three slack horseguards, half asleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swayed limply, leaning on their saddle-bows.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The boat crews, lolling in a semi-doze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still watch the herd; nor do the gazers dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What drama nears a climax over stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What others yonder may be watching too.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now looming large upon the lucent blue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The foremost ponies top the rim, and stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "High-headed down the vacancies of air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath them; while the herders dawdle still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gather wool scarce halfway up the hill⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A slumbrous sight beheld by heavy eyes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But hark! What murmuring of far-flung cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From yonder pocket in the folded rise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That flanks the draw? The herders also hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with a start glance upward to the rear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their spurred mounts plunge! What do they see but dust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whipped skyward yonder in a freakish gust?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What panic overtakes them? Look again!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rolling dust cloud vomits mounted men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ruck of tossing heads and gaudy gears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath a bristling thicket of lean spears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slant in a gust of onset!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Over stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The boatmen stare dumbfounded. Like a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In some vague region out of space and time", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Evolves the swiftly moving pantomime", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before those loungers with ungirded loins;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till one among them shouts “Assinboines!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And swelling to a roar, the wild word runs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above a pell-mell scramble for the guns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perceived as futile soon. Yet here and there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A few young hotheads fusillade the air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rage the more to know the deed absurd.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some only grind their teeth without a word;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some stand aghast, some grinningly inane,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While some, like watch-dogs rabid at the chain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Growl curses, pacing at the river’s rim.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So might unhappy spirits haunt the dim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far shore of Styx, beholding outrage done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To loved ones in the region of the sun⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rage goaded by its own futility!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For one vast moment strayed from time, they see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The war band flung obliquely down the slope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The flying herdsmen, seemingly agrope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In sudden darkness for their saddle guns.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A murmuring shock! And now the whole scene runs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Into a dusty blur of horse and man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the herd’s rear surges on the van", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That takes the cue of panic fear and flies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stampeding to the margin of the skies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till all have vanished in the deeps of air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now outlined sharply on the sky-rim there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The victors pause and taunt their helpless foes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With buttocks patted and with thumbs at nose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And jeers scarce hearkened for the wind’s guffaw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They also vanish. In the sunwashed draw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remains no sign of what has come to pass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save three dark splotches on the yellow grass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where now the drowsy horseguards have their will.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At sundown on the summit of the hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The huddled boatmen saw the burial squad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tuck close their comrades’ coverlet of sod⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Weird silhouettes on melancholy gray.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And very few found anything to say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That night; though some spoke gently of the dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remembering what that one did or said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At such and such a time. And some, more stirred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With lust of vengeance for the stolen herd,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swore vaguely now and then beneath their breath.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some, brooding on the imminence of death,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew wistful of their unreturning years;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some who found their praying in arrears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made shift to liquidate the debt that night.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But when once more the cheerful morning light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came on them toiling, also came the mood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of young adventure, and the solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sang with them. For ’tis glorious to spend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One’s golden days large-handed to the end⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The good broadpieces that can buy so much!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what may hoarders purchase but a crutch", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherewith to hobble graveward?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "On they pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where once more the river led them west;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And every day the hot wind, puff on puff,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Assailed them; every night they heard it sough", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In thickets prematurely turning sere.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then came the sudden breaking of the year.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Abruptly in a waning afternoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hot wind ceased, as fallen in a swoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With its own heat. For hours the swinking crews", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had bandied scarcely credible good news", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of clouds across the dim northwestward plain;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they who offered wagers on the rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Found ready takers, though the gloomy rack,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With intermittent rumbling at its back,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had mounted slowly. Now it towered high,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A blue-black wall of night across the sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shot through with glacial green.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A mystic change!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sun was hooded and the world went strange⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A picture world! The hollow hush that fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made loud the creaking of the taut cordelle,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bent spar’s groan, the plunk of steering poles.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bodeful calm lay glassy on the shoals;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The current had the look of flowing oil.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saw the cloud’s lip billow now and boil⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Black breakers gnawing at a coast of light;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saw the stealthy wraith-arms of the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grope for the day to strangle it; they saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The up-stream reaches vanish in a flaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of driving sand: and scarcely were the craft", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made fast to clumps of willow fore and aft,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When with a roar the blinding fury rolled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon them; and the breath of it was cold.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There fell no rain.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That night was calm and clear:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Just such a night as when the waning year", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Has set aflare the old Missouri wood;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When Greenings are beginning to be good;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when, so hollow is the frosty hush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One hears the ripe persimmons falling⁠—plush!⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the littered leaves. The kindly time!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With cider in the vigor of its prime,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Just strong enough to edge the dullest wit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should neighbor folk drop in awhile to sit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gossip. O the dear flame-painted gloam,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The backlog’s sputter on the hearth at home⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How far away that night! Thus many a lad,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grown strangely old, remembered and was sad.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wolves mourned among the bluffs. Like hanks of wool", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fog flecked the river. And the moon was full.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A week sufficed to end the trail. They came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the lesser river gives its name", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And meed of waters to the greater stream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here, lacking horses, they must nurse the dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of beaver haunts beyond the Great Divide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Build quarters for the winter trade, and bide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The coming up of Ashley and his band.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So up and down the wooded tongue of land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That thins to where the rivers wed, awoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sound of many axes, stroke on stroke;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lustily the hewers sang at whiles⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The better to forget the homeward miles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In this, the homing time. And when the geese", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With cacophonic councils broke the peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of frosty nights before they took to wing;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When cranes went over daily, southering,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And blackbirds chattered in the painted wood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A mile above the river junction stood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fort, adjoining the Missouri’s tide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Foursquare and thirty paces on a side,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wall of sharpened pickets bristled round", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A group of sod-roofed cabins. Bastions frowned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From two opposing corners, set to brave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A foe on either flank; and stout gates gave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the stream, where now already came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Indian craft, lured thither by the fame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of traders building by the mating floods.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now came at dawn a party of the Bloods,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who told of having paddled seven nights", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To parley for their people with the Whites,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The long way lying ’twixt a foe and foe;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For ever on their right hand lurked the Crow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And on their left hand, the Assiniboine.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The crane-winged news, that where the waters join", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Long Knives built a village, made them sad;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because the pastures thereabouts were bad,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sustaining few and very scrawny herds.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So they had hastened hither, bringing words", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of kindness from their mighty men, to tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What welcome waited on the Musselshell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where stood the winter lodges of their band.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They rhapsodized the fatness of that land:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lush valleys where all summer bison ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To grass grown higher than a mounted man!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, winter long on many a favored slope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bison grazed with goat and antelope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor were they ever leaner in the spring!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One heard the diving beaver’s thundering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In all the streams at night; and one might hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Uncounted bull elks whistle, when the year", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was painted for its death. Their squaws were good,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strong bearers of the water and the wood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With quiet tongues and never weary hands;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tall as the fighting men of other lands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And good to look upon. These things were so!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why else then should Assiniboine and Crow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Assail the Bloods?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now flaring up, they spoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of battles and their haters blown as smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the blizzard of their people’s ire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Devoured as grass before a prairie fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That licks the heavens when the Northwind runs!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But, none the less, their warriors needed guns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And powder. Wherefor, let the Great White Chief", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Return with them, ere yet the painted leaf", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had fallen. If so be he might not leave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This land of peoples skillful to deceive,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who, needing much, had scarce a hide to sell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then send a party to the Musselshell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To trade and trap until the grass was young", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And calves were yellow. With no forkèd tongue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Bloods had spoken. Had the White Chief ears?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So Major Henry called for volunteers;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Fink was ready on the word to go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“And chance the bloody naygurs”; then Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then Carpenter; and after these were nine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In whom young blood was like a beading wine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who lusted for the venture.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Late that night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Bloods set out for home. With day’s first light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dozen trappers followed, paddling west", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In six canoes. And whatso suited best", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The whimsies of the savage or his needs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The slim craft carried⁠—scarlet cloth and beads,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some antiquated muskets, powder, ball,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Traps, knives, and little casks of alcohol", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To lubricate the rusty wheels of trade!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So, singing as they went, the blithe brigade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Departed, with their galloping canoes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heeding the tune. They had no time to lose;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For long and stubborn was the up-stream way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when they launched their boats at break of day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They heard a thin ice tinkle at the prows.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A bodeful silence and a golden drowse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Possessed the land. The Four Winds held their breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before a vast serenity of death,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein it seemed the reminiscent Year⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A yearning ghost now⁠—wrought about its bier", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some pale hallucination of its May.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bleak stretched the prairie to the walls of day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So dry, that where a loping kiote broke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its loneliness, it smouldered into smoke:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when a herd of bison rumbled past,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas like a great fire booming in a blast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rolling smudge whereof concealed the flame.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Proceeding in the truce of winds, they came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In five days to the vale the Poplar drains.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A trailing flight of southbound whooping cranes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the fading West, was like a scrawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of cabalistic warning on a wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And counselled haste. In seven days they reached", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The point where Wolf Creek empties in, and beached", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their keels along its dusty bed. In nine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Elk Prairie and the Little Porcupine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now waterless, had fallen to the rear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tenth sun failed them on the lone frontier", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where flows the turbid Milk by countless bends", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where Assiniboian country ends", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Blackfoot Land begins. The hollow gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All night resounded with the beaver’s boom;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wolf pack yammered from a distant hill;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Anon a rutting elk cried, like a shrill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Arpeggio blown upon a flageolet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A half day more their lifting prows were set", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To westward; then the flowing trail led south", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two days by many a bend to Hell Creek’s mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the Badlands. Gazing from a height,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lookout saw the marching of the Night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across a vast black waste of peaks and deeps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That could have been infernal cinder-heaps,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The relics of an ancient hell gone cold.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That night they saw a wild aurora rolled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the lifeless wilderness. It formed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Northeastwardly in upright waves that stormed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To westward, sequent combers of the bow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That gulfed Polaris in their undertow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hurtled high upon the Ursine Isles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A surf of ghostly fire. Again, at whiles,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shimmering silken veil, it puffed and swirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ’twere the painted curtain of the world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That fluttered in a rising gale of doom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when it vanished in the starry gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One said “ ’Twill blow tomorrow.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So it did.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ere noon they raised the Half Way Pyramid", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Southwestward; saw its wraith-like summit lift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And seem to float northwest against a drift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wind-whipped dust. The lunar hills about⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where late a bird’s note startled like a shout", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hush that seemed the body of old Time⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now bellowed where the hoofs of Yotunheim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Foreran the grizzled legions of the Snow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas peep of day when it began to blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A zephyr growing stronger with the light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now by fits it churned the river white", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whipped the voyageurs with freezing spray.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The windward reaches took their breath away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ghost-white and numb with cold, from bend to bend,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where transiently the wind became a friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To drive them south, they battled; till at last", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Around a jutting bluff they met a blast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That choked as with a hand upon their throats", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The song they sang for courage; hurled their boats", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the farther shore and held them pinned.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A sting of spitting snow was in the wind.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Southwest by west across the waste, where fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A murky twilight, lay the Musselshell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two days of travel with the crow for guide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here must they find them shelter, and abide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The passing of the blizzard as they could.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The banks bore neither plum nor cottonwood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all the hills were naked as a hand.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But where, debouching from the broken land,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A river in the spring was wont to flow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A northward moving herd of buffalo", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had crossed the river, evidently bound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From failing pastures to the grazing ground", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the Milk: and where the herd had passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was scattered bois de vache enough to last", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the storm abated. So they packed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Great blanketfuls of sun-dried chips, and stacked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The precious fuel where the wind was stilled⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A pocket hemmed by lofty bluffs and filled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With mingled dusk and thunder; bore therein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Canoes and cargo, pitched their tents of skin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About a central heap of glowing chips,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dined on brittle bull-meat dried in strips,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With rum to wash it down.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It snowed all night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The earth and heavens, in the morning light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were one white fury; and the stream ran slush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two days and nights the gale boomed; then a hush", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell with the sun; and when the next dawn came⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A pale flare flanked by mockeries of flame⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The river lay as solid as the land.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now caching half their goods, the little band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Resumed the journey, toiling under packs;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And twice they felt the morning at their backs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A laggard traveller; and twice they saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sunset dwindle to a starry awe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the frozen vast, while still they pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The journey⁠—bearded faces yearning west,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White as the waste they trod. Then one day more,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Southwestward, brought them to the jutting shore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That faced the goal.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A strip of poplars stretched", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along a winding stream, their bare boughs etched", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Black line by line upon a flat of snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blue tinted in the failing afterglow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Humped ponies ’mid the drifts and clumps of sage", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went nosing after grudging pasturage", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where’er it chanced the blizzard’s whimsic flaws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had swept the slough grass bare. A flock of squaws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Chopped wood and chattered in the underbrush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their ax strokes thudding dully in the hush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their nasal voices rising shrill and clear:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, circled ’neath a bluff that towered sheer", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the stream, snug lodges wrought of hide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Smoke-plumed and glowing with the fires inside,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made glad the gazers. Even as they stood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Content to stare a moment, from the wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The clamor deepened, and a running shout", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the lodges brought the dwellers out,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Braves, squaws, papooses; and the wolf dogs bayed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And up the flat the startled ponies neighed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pricking their ears to question what befell.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So came Fink’s party to the Musselshell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gaunt, bearded, yet⁠—how gloriously young", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then, what feasts of bison fleece and tongue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of browned boudin and steaming humprib stew!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What roaring nights of wassailing they knew⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gargantuan regales⁠—when through the town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fiery liquor ravined, melting down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tribal hoard of beaver! How they made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their merest gewgaws mighty in the trade!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, merry men they were! Nor could they know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How even then there came that wraith of woe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amongst them; some swift-fingered Fate that span", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stuff of sorrow, wove ’twixt man and man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tangling mesh, that friend might ruin friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And each go stumbling to a bitter end⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A threefold doom that now the Song recalls.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There was a woman.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What enchantment falls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon that far off revel! How the din", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of jangling voices, chaffering to win", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lesser values, hushes at the words,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As dies the dissonance of brawling birds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a calm before the storm is hurled!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lo, down the age-long reaches of the world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What rose-breatht wind of ghostly music creeps!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And was she fair⁠—this woman? Legend keeps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No answer; yet we know that she was young,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If truly comes the tale by many a tongue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That one of Red Hair’s party fathered her.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What need to know her features as they were?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was she not lovely as her lover’s thought,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And beautiful as that wild love she wrought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was fatal? Vessel of the world’s desire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Did she not glow with that mysterious fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That lights the hearth or burns the rooftree down?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What face was hers who made the timeless town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A baleful torch forever? Hers who wailed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the altar when the four winds failed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At Aulis? What the image that looked up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On Iseult from the contemplated cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of everlasting thirst? What wondrous face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the countless cradles of the race", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Makes sudden heaven for the blinking eyes?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One face in truth! And once in Paradise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Each man shall stray unwittingly, and see⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In some unearthly valley where the Tree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With golden fruitage perilously fraught", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still stands⁠—that image of God’s afterthought.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then shall the world turn wonderful and strange!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Who knows how came that miracle of change", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Fink at last? For he was not of such", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As tend to prize one woman overmuch;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And legend has it that, from Pittsburg down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Baton Rouge, in many a river town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some blowsy Ariadne pined for Mike.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“It is me rule to love ’em all alike.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He often said, with slow, omniscient wink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When just the proper quantity of drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had made him philosophic; “Glass or gourd,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shure, now, they’re all wan liquor whin they’re poured!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aye, rum is rum, me b’y!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alas, the tongue!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How glibly are its easy guesses flung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the knowing reticence of years,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To echo laughter in the time of tears,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Raw gusts of mocking merriment that stings!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some logic in the seeming ruck of things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Inscrutably confutes us!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now had come", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The time when rum no longer should be rum,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But witchwine sweet with peril. It befell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In this wise, insofar as tongue may tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tongues repeat the little eyes may guess", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of what may happen in that wilderness,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The human heart. There dwelt a mighty man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the Bloods, a leader of his clan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Around whose life were centered many lives,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For many sons had he of many wives;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And also he was rich in pony herds.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherefore, they say, men searched his lightest words", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For hidden things, since anyone might see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That none had stronger medicine than he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To shape aright the stubborn stuff of life.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the women that he had to wife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was she who knew the white man when the band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Red Hair made such marvel in the land,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She being younger then and little wise.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But in that she was pleasing to the eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And kept her fingers busy for her child", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bore a silent tongue, the great man smiled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the woman, called her to his fire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gave the Long Knife’s girl a foster sire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So that her maidenhood was never lean,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But like a pasture that is ever green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because it feels a mountain’s sunny flank.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now in the season when the pale sun shrank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far southward, like another kind of moon,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dawns were laggard and the dark came soon,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It pleased the great man’s whim to give a feast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas five days after Carpenter went east", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With eight stout ponies and a band of three", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To lift the cache; a fact that well might be", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sly father to the great man’s festive mood⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wistfully prospective gratitude,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Anticipating charity!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It chanced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That while the women sang and young men danced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the drummers, and the pipe went round,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever ’twixt the songs arose the sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of fat dog stewing, Fink, with mournful eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pious mien, lamented the demise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of “pore owld Fido,” till his comrades choked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With stifled laughter; soberly invoked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The plopping stew (“Down, Rover I Down, me lad!”);", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Discussed the many wives the old man had", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In language more expressive than polite.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, last of all his merry nights, that night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink clowned it, little dreaming he was doomed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To wear that mask of sorrow he assumed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In comic mood, thenceforward to the last.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For even as he joked, the net was cast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About him, and the mystic change had come,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he had looked on rum that was not rum⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Long Knife’s daughter!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Stooped beneath a pack", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of bundled twigs, she pushed the lodge-flap back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And entered lightly; placed her load of wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the fire; then straightened up and stood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One moment there, a shapely girl and tall.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There wasn’t any drama: that was all.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when she left, the wit had died in Fink.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed a man who takes the one more drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That spoils the fun, relaxes jaw and jowl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And makes the jester, like a sunstruck owl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stare solemnly at nothing.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All next day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He moped about with scarce a word to say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And no one dared investigate his whim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when the twilight came, there fell on him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sentimental, reminiscent mood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though upon some frozen solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Within him, breathed a softening chinook,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far strayed across the alplike years that look", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On what one used to be and what one is.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when he raised that mellow voice of his", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In songs of lovers wedded to regret,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis said that, unashamed, men’s eyes grew wet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So poignantly old memories were stirred.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And much his comrades marvelled as they heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That ribald jester singing thus of love.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor could they solve the mystery thereof,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until at dawn they saw him rise and take", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A rifle of the latest Hawkin make,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ball, powder, and a bolt of scarlet goods,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hasten to the fringe of cottonwoods", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where rose the great man’s lodge smoke. Then they knew;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For thus with gifts the Bloods were wont to woo", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The daughter through the sire.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The white sun burned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Midmost the morning steep when he returned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Without his load and humming as he went.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hour by hour he squatted in his tent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stared upon the fire; save now and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He stirred himself to lift the flap again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And cast an anxious gaze across the snows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where stood the chieftain’s lodge. And well did those", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who saw him know what sight he hoped to see;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For ’twas the custom that the bride-to-be", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should carry food to him she chose to wed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Meanwhile, with seemly caution, be it said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink’s men enjoyed a comedy, and laid", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sly wagers on the coming of the maid⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She would! She wouldn’t! So the brief day waned.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now when the sun, a frosty specter maned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With corruscating vapors, lingered low", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shadows lay like steel upon the snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An old squaw, picking faggots in the brush,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Saw that which set her shrieking in the hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“They come! They come!” Then someone shouted “Crows!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The town spewed tumult, men with guns and bows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half clad and roaring; shrill hysteric wives", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With sticks of smoking firewood, axes, knives;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dogs, bristle-necked and snarling. So they pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To meet a foe, as from a stricken nest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hornet swarm boils over.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Blinking, dazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With sudden light and panic fear, they gazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the frozen waste; and then they saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eight laden ponies filing up the draw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their nostrils steaming, slack of neck and slow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behind them, stumbling in the broken snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three weary trappers trudged, while in the lead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strode Carpenter. A goodly sight, indeed!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upstanding, eagle-faced and eagle-eyed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ease of latent power in his stride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He dwarfed the panting pony that he led;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the level sunlight ’round his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made glories in the frosted beard and hair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some Gothic fighting god seemed walking there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strayed from the dim Hercynian woods of old.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "How little of a story can be told!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let him who knows what happens in the seed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the sprout breaks sunward, make the deed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A plummet for the dreaming deeps that surged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the surface ere the deed emerged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For neat appraisal by the rule of thumb!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The best of Clio is forever dumb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To human ears at least. Nor shall the Song", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Presume to guess and tell how all night long,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While roared the drunken orgy and the trade,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Doom quickened in the fancy of a maid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The daughter of the Long Knife; how she saw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely moving through a spacious awe", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behind shut lids where never came the brawl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That shining one, magnificently tall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A day-crowned mortal brother of the sun.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suffice it here that, when the night was done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And morning, like an uproar in the east,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aroused the town still heavy with the feast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All men might see what whimsic, fatal bloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A soil, dream-plowed and seeded in the gloom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had nourished unto blowing in the day.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas then the girl appeared and took her way", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the snow with hesitating feet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She bore a little pot of steaming meat;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when midmost the open space, she turned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And held it up to where the morning burned,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one who begs a blessing of the skies.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unconscious of the many peeping eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Erect, with wrapt uplifted face she stood⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A miracle of shapely maidenhood⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the flaming god. And many heard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or seemed to hear by piecing word to word,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prayer she muttered to the wintry sky:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“O Sun, behold a maiden! Pure am I!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Look kindly on the little gift I give;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, save you smile upon it, what can live?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bright Father, hear a maiden!” Then, as one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who finds new courage for a task begun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She turned and hastened to the deed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There was no dearth of gossiping that day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the lodges. Shrewish tongues there were", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That clacked no happy prophecies of her.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And many wondered at the chieftain’s whim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Long Knife’s girl had wrought a spell on him;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why else then was he silent? See her shrink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A moment there before the tent of Fink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one who feels a sudden sleety blast!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But look again! She starts, and hurries past!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All round the circled village, lodges yawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see how brazen in the stare of dawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A petted girl may be. For now, behold!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was ever maiden of the Bloods so bold?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She stops before another tent and stoops,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her fingers feeling for the buckskin loops", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That bind the rawhide flap. ’Tis opened wide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The slant white light of morning falls inside,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half the town may witness at whose feet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She sets the little pot of steaming meat⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis Carpenter!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Perceptibly, at length,", "indent": 8 }, { "text": "The days grew longer, and the winter’s strength", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Increased to fury. Down across the flat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blizzards bellowed; and the people sat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fur-robed about the smoky fires that stung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their eyes to streaming, when a freak gust flung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sharp reek back with flaws of powdered snow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And much the old men talked of long ago,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Invoking ghostly Winters from the Past,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till cold snap after cold snap followed fast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And none might pile his verbal snow so deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But some athletic memory could heap", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The drifts a trifle higher; give the cold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A greater rigor in the story told;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Put bellows to a wind already high.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever greater reverence thereby", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The old men won from gaping youths, who heard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like marginalia to the living word,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The howling of the poplars tempest-bent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The smoke-flap cracking sharply at the vent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lodge poles creaking eerily. And O!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The happy chance of living long ago,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of having wrinkles now and being sires", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With many tales to tell around the fires", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of days when things were bigger! All night long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White hands came plucking at the buckskin thong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That bound the door-flap, and the writhing dark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was shrill with spirits. By the snuffling bark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of dogs men knew that homesick ghosts were there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And often in a whirl of chilling air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The weird ones entered, though the flap still held,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Built up in smoke the shapes they knew of eld,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grew thin and long to vanish as they came.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now had the scandal, like a sudden flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fed fat with grasses, perished in the storm.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fundamental need of keeping warm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sufficed the keenest gossip for a theme;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whimsies faded like a warrior’s dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When early in the dawn the foemen cry.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The time when calves are black had blustered by⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A weary season⁠—since the village saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The chiefs wife pitching for her son-in-law", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The nuptial lodge she fashioned. Like a bow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That feels the arrow’s head, the moon hung low", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That evening when they gave the wedding gifts;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And men had seen it glaring through the rifts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wintry war as up the east it reeled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A giant warrior’s battle-bitten shield⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But now it braved no more the charging air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Meanwhile the lodge of Carpenter stood there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the chieftain’s, huddled in the snows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like a story everybody knows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was little heeded now.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But there was one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who seldom noted what was said or done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among his comrades; he would sit and look", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the fire, as one who reads a book", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of woeful doings, ever on the brink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of ultimate disaster. It was Fink:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And seeing this, Talbeau was sick at heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With dreading that his friends might drift apart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he be lost, because he loved them both.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But, knowing well Mike’s temper, he was loath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To broach the matter. Also, knowing well", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That silence broods upon the hottest hell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He prayed that Fink might curse.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So worried past", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The days of that estrangement. Then at last", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One night when round their tent the blizzard roared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, nestled in their robes, the others snored,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau could bear the strain no more and spoke.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He opened with a random little joke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some starved hunter trying out the range", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of precious game where all the land is strange;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, as the hunter, missing, hears the grim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And spiteful echo-rifles mocking him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His own unmirthful laughter mocked Talbeau.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He could have touched across the ember-glow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike’s brooding face⁠—yet Mike was far away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And O that nothing more than distance lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between them⁠—any distance with an end!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How tireless then in running to his friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A man might be! For suddenly he knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That Mike would have him choose between the two.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How could he choose ’twixt Carpenter and Fink?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How idle were a choice ’twixt food and drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When, choosing neither, one were sooner dead!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus torn within, and hoarse with tears unshed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He strove again to find his comrade’s heart:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“O damn it, Mike, don’t make us drift apart!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Don’t do it, Mike! This ain’t a killin’ fuss,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hadn’t ought to faze the three of us", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That’s weathered many a rough-and-tumble fight!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "W’y don’t you mind that hell-a-poppin’ night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At Baton Rouge three years ago last fall⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The time we fit the whole damned dancin’ hall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And waded out nigh belly-deep in men?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O who’d have said a girl could part us, then?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, Mike, that fracas in the Vide Poche dive!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can you forget it long as you’re alive?⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A merry time! Us strollin’ arm-in-arm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From drink to drink, not calculatin’ harm,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But curious, because St. Louis town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fair boiled with greasy mountain men, come down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All brag and beaver, howlin’ for a spree!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then⁠—you mind?⁠—a feller jostled me⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas at the bar⁠—a chap all bones and big.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Says he in French: ‘You eater of a pig,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Make room for mountain men!’ And then says you", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Irish, aimin’ where the whiskers grew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And landin’ fair: ‘You eater of a dog,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Make room for boatmen!’ Like a punky log", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That’s water-soaked, he dropped. What happened then?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A cyclone in a woods of mountain men⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That’s what! O Mike, you can’t forget it now!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what in hell’s a woman, anyhow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To memories like that?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So spoke Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, pausing, heard the hissing of the snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The snoring of the sleepers, and the cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of blizzard-beaten poplars. Still Fink’s eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the crumbling embers pored intent.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then momently, or so it seemed, there went", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across that alien gaze a softer light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As when bleak windows in a moony night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flush briefly with a candle borne along.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And suddenly the weary hope grew strong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In him who saw the glimmer, and he said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“O Mike, I see the good old times ain’t dead!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why don’t you fellers shoot the whisky cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The way you used to do?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then Fink looked up.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas bad the way the muscles twitched and worked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About his mouth, and in his eyes there lurked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some crouchant thing. “To hell wid you!” he cried.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So love and hate that night slept side by side;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hate slept well, but love lay broad awake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like a woman, for the other’s sake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eked out the lonely hours with worrying.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now came a heartsick yearning for the spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon Talbeau; for surely this bad dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would vanish with the ice upon the stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Old times be resurrected with the grass!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But would the winter ever, ever pass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The howling of the blizzard ever cease?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So often now he dreamed of hearing geese", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remotely honking in the rain-washed blue;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever when the blur of dawn broke through", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The scudding rack, he raised the flap to see,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By sighting through a certain forkèd tree,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How much the sun made northward.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then, one day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The curtain of the storm began to fray;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The poplars’ howling softened to a croon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sun set clear, and dusk revealed the moon⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thin-blown bubble in a crystal bowl.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All night, as ’twere the frozen prairie’s soul", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That voiced a hopeless longing for the spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wolves assailed with mournful questioning", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The starry deeps of that tremendous hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dawn wore the mask of May⁠—a rosy flush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed the magic of a single bird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might prove the seeing of the eye absurd", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And make the heaped-up winter billow green.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On second thought, one knew the air was keen⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A whetted edge in gauze. The village fires", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely builded tenuous gray spires", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That vanished in the still blue deeps of awe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All prophets were agreed upon a thaw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the morning stood a spear-length high,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There grew along the western rim of sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A bank of cloud that had a rainy look.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It mounted slowly. Then the warm chinook", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Began to breathe a melancholy drowse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sob among the naked poplar boughs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the prairie dreamed a dream of June", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And knew it for a dream. All afternoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gale increased. The sun went down blood-red;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The young moon, perilously fragile, fled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To early setting. And the long night roared.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Tempestuously broke the day and poured", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An intermittent glory through the rifts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the driven fog. The sodden drifts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already grooved and withered in the blast;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the flying noon stared down aghast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bluffs behind the village boomed with flood.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What magic in that sound to stir the blood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of winter-weary men! For now the spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No longer seemed a visionary thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that which any morning might bestow.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And most of all that magic moved Talbeau;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, scrutinizing Fink, he thought he saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some reflex of that February thaw⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A whit less curling of the upper lip.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O could it be returning comradeship,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That April not beholden to the moon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor chatteled to the sun?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That afternoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They played at euchre. Even Fink sat in;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And though he showed no eagerness to win,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forgot the trumps and played his bowers wild,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There were not lacking moments when he smiled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hesitating smile ’twixt wan and grim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed his stubborn mood embarrassed him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because regret now troubled it with shame.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The great wind died at midnight. Morning came,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serene and almost indolently warm⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As when an early April thunder storm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Has cleansed the night and vanished with the gloom;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When one can feel the imminence of bloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ’twere a spirit in the orchard trees;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When, credulous of blossom, come the bees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To grumble ’round the seepages of sap.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So mused Talbeau while, pushing back the flap,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Instinctively he listened for a bird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To fill the hush. Then presently he heard⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ’twas the only sound in all the world⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trickle of the melting snow that purled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tinkled in the bluffs above the town.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sight of ragged Winter patched with brown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The golden peace and, palpitant therein,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That water note, spun silverly and thin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Begot a wild conviction in the man:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wounded Winter weakened; now began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The reconciliation! Hate would go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, even as the water from the snow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Old comradeship come laughing back again!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All morning long he pondered, while the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Played seven-up. And scarce a trick was played", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But someone sang a snatch of song or made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A merry jest. And when the game was balked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By one who quite forgot his hand, and talked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of things in old St. Louis, none demurred.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thus, by noon, it seemed the lightest word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of careless salutation would avail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To give a happy ending to the tale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of clouded friendship. So he ’rose and went,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By studied indirection, to the tent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Carpenter, as one who takes the air.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, as he raised the flap and entered there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sudden gale of laughter from the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blew after him. What music in it then!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What mockery, when memory should raise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So often in the coming nights and days", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ruthless echo of it!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Click on click", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the whirlwind finish of a trick", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cards fell fast, while King and Queen and Ace,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With meaner trumps for hounds, pursued the chase", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wily Knave and lurking Deuce and Ten;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When suddenly the game-enchanted men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were conscious of a shadow in the place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And glancing up they saw the smiling face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Carpenter, thrust in above Talbeau’s.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“How goes it, Boys?” said he; and gaily those", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Returned the greeting. “Howdy, Mike!” he said;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with a sullen hanging of the head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink mumbled “Howdy!” Gruff⁠—but what of that?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One can not doff displeasure like a hat⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twould dwindle snow-like.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Nothing else would do", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Carpenter should play. Now Fink played too;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, having brought his cherished ones together,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau surrendered to the languid weather", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, dreamily contented, watched the sport.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All afternoon the pictured royal court", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pursued its quarry in the mimic hunt;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Carpenter, now gayer than his wont,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lost much; while Fink, with scarce a word to say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His whole attention fixed upon the play,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Won often. So it happened, when the sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was near to setting, that the day seemed won", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For friendliness, however stood the game.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But even then that Unseen Player came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who stacks the shuffled deck of circumstance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, playing wild the Joker men call Chance,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defeats the Aces of our certainty.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The cards were dealt and Carpenter bid three.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The next man passed the bid, and so the next.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than Fink, a trifle hesitant and vexed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bid four on spades. And there was one who said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In laughing banter: “Mike, I’ll bet my head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As how them spades of your’n’ll dig a hole!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in some subtle meaning of the soul", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wag was more a prophet than he knew.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink held the Ace and Deuce, and that made two:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His black King scored another point with Knave.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Carpenter, to whom that Weird One gave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A band of lesser trumps to guard his Ten,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lay low until the Queen had passed, and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swept in a last fat trick for Game, and scored.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the players slapped their knees and roared:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“You’re set! You’re in the hole! He set you, Mike!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then suddenly they saw Fink crouch to strike;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ere they comprehended what they saw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There came a thud of knuckles on a jaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Carpenter rolled over on the ground.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One moment in a breathless lapse of sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stricken man strove groggily to ’rise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The emptiness of wonder in his eyes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turned dreamily with seeming unconcern", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon Mike’s face, where now began to burn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The livid murder-lust. ’Twixt breath and breath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hush and immobility of death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made there a timeless picture. Then a yell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As of a wild beast charging, broke the spell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink sprang to crush, but midway met Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who threw him as a collie dog may throw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A raging bull. But Mike was up again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wielding thrice the might of common men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He gripped the little man by nape and thigh", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lightly lifted him and swung him high", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flung him; and the smitten tent went down.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then ’rose a roar that roused the teeming town,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And presently a shouting rabble surged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the wreck, whence tumblingly emerged", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A knot of men who grappled Fink and clung.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prodigiously he rose beneath them, flung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His smashing arms, man-laden, forth and back;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But stubbornly they gripped him, like a pack", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That takes uncowed the maulings of a bear.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Let Carpenter get up!” they cried. “Fight fair!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fight fair! Fight fair!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Quite leisurely the while", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stricken man arose, a sleepy smile", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About his quiet eyes. Indeed, he seemed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one but lately wakened, who has dreamed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A pleasing dream. But when he stroked his beard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gazed upon his fingers, warmly smeared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With crimson from the trickle at his jaw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His eyes went eagle-keen with what they saw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stupor passed. He hastily untied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His buckskin shirt and, casting it aside,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stood naked to the hips. The tumult ceased", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As, panting hard, the voyageurs released", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their struggling charge and, ducking to a swing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of those freed arms, sought safety, scampering.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink also stripped his shirt; and as the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stood thus revealed, a buzz of wonder ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the jostling rabble. Few there were", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who in that moment envied Carpenter,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely poised and waiting placid browed:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For shall a lonely cedar brave a cloud", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bulged big and shapen to the cyclone’s whirl?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lo, even as the body of a girl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The body of the blond was smooth and white;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But vaguely, as one guesses at the might", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of silent waters running swift and deep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One guessed what stores of power lay asleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the long fleet lines of trunk and limb.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus God had made experiment with him;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, groping for the old Adamic dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had found his patterns in the tree and stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As Fink’s in whirling air and hungry flame.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now momently the picture there became", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A blur of speed. Mike rushed. The tiptoe town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Craned eagerly to see a man go down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before that human thunder gust. But lo!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As bends a sapling when the great winds blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The other squatted, deftly swayed aside,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And over him the slashing blows went wide.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink sprawled. But hardly had a spreading roar", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O’errun the town, when silence as before", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Possessed the scene; for Mike flashed back again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With flamelike speed, and suddenly the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Clenched, leaning neck to neck.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Without a word,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like horn-locked bulls that strive before the herd,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They balanced might with might; till Mike’s hands whipped", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the other’s arm-pits, met and gripped", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the broad white shoulders. Then began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The whole prodigious engine of the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To bulge and roll and darken with the strain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like rivulets fed suddenly with rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tall one’s thews rose ropily and flowed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Converging might against the growing load", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of those tremendous arms that strove to crush.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Their labored breathing whistled in the hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One saw the blond man’s face go bluish red,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As deeper, deeper sank Fink’s shaggy head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid his heaped-up shoulder brawn. One knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That very soon the taller of the two", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must yield and take that terrible embrace.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A tense hypnotic quiet filled the place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The men were like two wrestlers in a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That holds an endless moment; till a scream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell stab-like on the hush. One saw Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Jaws set, hands clenched, eyes wild, and bending low,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though he too were struggling, slowly bowed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath Fink’s might. And then⁠—", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What ailed the crowd?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Swept over by a flurry of surprise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They swayed and jostled, shouting battle-cries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And quips and jeers of savage merriment.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One moment they had seen the tall man bent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About to break: then, falling back a-haunch,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His feet had plunged against the other’s paunch", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sent Fink somersaulting.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A silence fell as, leaping up, the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were mingled briefly in a storm of blows.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now, tripping like a dancer on his toes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blond man sparred; while, like a baited bear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half blinded with the lust to crush and tear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink strove to clutch that something lithe and sleek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That stung and fled and stung. Upon his cheek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A flying shadow laid a vivid bruise;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Another⁠—and his brow began to ooze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Slow drops that spattered on his bearded jaw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Again that shadow passed⁠—his mouth went raw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And like a gunshot wound it gaped and bled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink roared with rage and plunged with lowered head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon this thing that tortured, hurled it back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the crowd. One heard a thud and smack", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of rapid blows on bone and flesh⁠—and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One saw the tall man stagger clear again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With gushing nostrils and a bloody grin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And down his front the whiteness of the skin", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was striped with flowing crimson to the waist.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unsteadily he wheeled about and faced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The headlong hate of his antagonist.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now toe to toe and fist to flying fist,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They played at give and take; and all the while", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The blond man smiled that riddle of a smile,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As one who meditates upon a jest.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet surely he was losing! Backward pressed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He strove in vain to check his raging foe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink lunged and straightened to a shoulder blow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With force enough to knock a bison down.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The other dodged it, squatting. Then the town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Discovered what a smile might signify.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For, even as the futile blow went by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One saw the lithe white form shoot up close in,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hooked white arm jab upward to the chin⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once⁠—twice⁠—and yet again. With eyes astare,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His hands aloft and clutching at the air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink tottered backward, limply lurched and fell.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then came to pass what stilled the rabble’s yell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So strange it was. And ’round the fires that night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wisest warriors, talking of the fight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could not explain what happened at the end.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No friend, they said, makes war upon a friend;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor does a foe have pity on a foe:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yet the tall white chief had bathed with snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bloody mouth and battered cheek and brow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of him who fell!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Queer people, anyhow,", "indent": 9 }, { "text": "The Long Knives were⁠—and hard to understand!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Bull-roaring March had swept across the land,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the evangelic goose and crane,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forerunners of the messianic Rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went crying through the wilderness aloft.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fog hid the sun, and yet the snow grew soft.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The monochrome of sky and poplar bough,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Drab tracery on drab, was stippled now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With swelling buds; and slushy water ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the ice-bound river that began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To stir and groan as one about to wake.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now, while they waited for the ice to break,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trappers fashioned bull-boats⁠—willow wrought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To bowl-like frames, and over these drawn taut", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Green bison hides with bison sinew sewn.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And much they talked about the Yellowstone:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How fared their comrades yonder since the fall?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And would they marvel at the goodly haul", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of beaver pelts these crazy craft should bring?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what of Ashley starting north that spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With yet another hundred? Did his prows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already nose the flood?⁠—Ah, cherry boughs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About St. Louis now were loud with bees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And white with bloom; and wading to the knees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cattle browsed along the fresh green sloughs!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yes, even now the leaning cordelle crews", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With word from home (so far away, alas!)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Led north the marching armies of the grass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ’twere the heart of Summertime they towed!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So while they shaped the willow frames and sewed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bison hides, the trappers’ hearts were light.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They talked no longer now about the fight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That story, shaped and fitted part by part,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unwittingly was rounded into art,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, being art, already it was old.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When this bleak time should seem the age of gold,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These men, grown gray and garrulous, might tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wondrous doings on the Musselshell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How Carpenter, the mighty, fought, and how", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Great Fink went down. But spring was coming now,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And who’s for backward looking in the spring?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet one might see that Mike still felt the sting", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of that defeat; for often he would brood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Himself the center of a solitude", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wherein the friendly chatter of the band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like a wind that makes a lonely land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seem lonelier. And much it grieved Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see a haughty comrade humbled so;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, even more, he feared what wounded pride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might bring to pass, before their boats could ride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dawnward reaches of the April floods", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And leave behind the village of the Bloods;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For now it seemed a curse was on the place.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau was like a man who views a race", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With all to lose: so slowly crept the spring,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So surely crawled some formless fatal thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He knew not what it was. But should it win,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Life could not be again as it had been", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And spring would scarcely matter any more.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The daybreak often found him at the shore,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ghostly figure in the muggy light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Intent to see what progress over night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The shackled river made against the chain.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And then at last, one night, a dream of rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came vividly upon him. How it poured!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A witch’s garden was the murk that roared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With bursting purple bloom. ’Twas April weather,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he and Mike and Bill were boys together", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the sounding shingle roof at home.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He smelled the odor of the drinking loam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still rolling mellow from the recent share;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he could feel the meadow greening there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the apple orchard. Then he ’woke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And raised the flap. A wraith of thunder-smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was trailing off along the prairie’s rim.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half dreaming yet, the landscape puzzled him.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What made the orchard seem so tall and lean?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And surely yonder meadow had been green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A moment since! What made it tawny now?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yonder where the billows of the plow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should glisten fat and sleek⁠—?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The drowsy spell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dropped off and left him on the Musselshell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the old familiar load of care.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He looked aloft. The stars had faded there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sky was cloudless. No, one lonely fleece", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely floated in the spacious peace", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And from the distance caught prophetic light.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In truth he had heard thunder in the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dashing rain; for all the land was soaked,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where the withered drifts had lingered, smoked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The naked soil. But since the storm was gone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How strange that still low thunder mumbled on⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An unresolving cadence marred at whiles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By dull explosions! Now for miles and miles", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the vale he saw a trail of steam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That marked the many windings of the stream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the river simmered. Then he knew.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was the sound of April breaking through!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The resurrection thunder had begun!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ice was going out, and spring had won", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The creeping race with dread!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "His ringing cheers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Brought out the blinking village by the ears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To share the news; and though they could not know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What ecstasy of triumph moved Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet lodge on lodge took up the joyous cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That set the dogs intoning to the sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The drenched cayuses shrilly nickering.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So man and beast proclaimed the risen Spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the Musselshell.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And all day long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The warring River sang its ocean song.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all that night the spirits of the rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made battle music with a shattered chain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And raged upon the foe. And did one gaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon that struggle through the starry haze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One saw enormous bodies heaved and tossed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where stubbornly the Yotuns of the Frost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With shoulder set to shoulder strove to stem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wild invasion rolling over them.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor in the morning was the struggle done.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely all that day the doughty Sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A banished king returning to his right,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beheld his legions pouring to the fight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Exhaustless; and his cavalries that rode⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With hoofs that rumbled and with manes that flowed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "White in the war gust⁠—crashing on the foe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all that night the din of overthrow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Arose to heaven from the stricken field;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sound as of the shock of spear and shield,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of wheels that trundled and the feet of hordes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of shrieking horses mad among the swords,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hurrahing of attackers and attacked,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sounds as of a city that is sacked", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When lust for loot runs roaring through the night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dawn looked upon no battle, but a flight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the next day broke, the spring flood flowed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some great host that takes the homeward road", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With many spoils⁠—a glad triumphal march,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of which the turquoise heaven was the arch.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now comes a morning when the tents are down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And packed for travel; and the whole Blood town", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is out along the waterfront to see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trappers going. Dancing as with glee,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Six laden bull-boats feel the April tide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sweep away. Along the riverside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The straggling, shouting rabble keeps abreast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little while; but, longer than the rest,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A weeping runner races with the swirl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And loses slowly. ’Tis the Long Knife’s girl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whom love perhaps already makes aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How flows unseen a greater river there⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The never-to-be-overtaken days.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now she pauses at the bend to gaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the black boats dwindling down the long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dawn-gilded reach. A merry trapper’s song", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Comes liltingly to mock her, and a hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Waves back farewell. Now ’round a point of land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The bull-boats disappear; and that is all⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save only that long waiting for the fall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he would come again.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All day they swirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Northeastwardly. The undulating world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flowed by them⁠—wooded headland, greening vale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And naked hill⁠—as in a fairy tale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remembered in a dream. And when the flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sunset died behind them, and the air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went weird and deepened to a purple gloom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saw the white Enchanted Castles loom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above them, slowly pass and drift a-rear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dissolving in the starry crystal sphere", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Mid which they seemed suspended. Late to camp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They launched while yet the crawling valley damp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made islands of the distant hills and hid", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The moaning flood. The Half Way Pyramid", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That noon stared in upon them from the south.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas starlight when they camped at Hell Creek’s mouth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among those hills where evermore in vain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Spring comes wooing, and the April rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is tears upon a tomb. And once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dead land echoed to the songs of men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bound dayward when the dawn was but a streak.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Halfway to noon they sighted Big Dry Creek,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not choked with grave dust now, but carolling", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The universal music of the spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then when the day was midway down the sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They reached the Milk. And howsoe’er the eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might sweep that valley with a far-flung gaze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It found no spot uncovered with a maze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of bison moving lazily at browse⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scarce wilder than a herd of dairy cows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That know their herdsman.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now the whole band willed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To tarry. So they beached their boats and killed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Three fading heifers; sliced the juicy rumps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For broiling over embers; set the humps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And loins to roast on willow spits, and threw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hearts and livers in a pot to stew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the time of dulling appetites.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the stream ran opalescent lights", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in a scarlet glow the new moon set,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The feast began. And some were eating yet,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some again in intervals of sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When upside down above the polar steep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Dipper hung. And many tales were told", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was hearty laughter as of old,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Fink’s guffaw to swell it now and then.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed old times were coming back again;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That truly they had launched upon a trip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereof the shining goal was comradeship:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tears were in the laughter of Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So glad was he. For how may mortals know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their gladness, save they sense it by the fear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That whispers how the very thing held dear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May pass away?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The smoky dawn was lit,", "indent": 9 }, { "text": "And, suddenly become aware of it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A flock of blue cranes, dozing on the sand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With startled cries awoke the sprawling band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And took the misty air with moaning wings.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Disgruntled with the chill drab scheme of things,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still half asleep and heavy with the feast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trappers launched their boats. But when the east", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Burned rosily, therefrom a raw wind blew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ever with the growing day it grew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the stream rose choppily and drove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fleet ashore. Camped snugly in a grove", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of cottonwoods, they slept. And when the gale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Together with the light, began to fail,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They ’rose and ate and set adrift again.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It seemed the solid world that mothers men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With twilight and the falling moon had passed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was nothing but a hollow vast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By time-outlasting stars remotely lit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they who at the central point of it", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hung motionless; while, rather sensed than seen,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The phantoms of a world that had been green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stole by in silence⁠—shapes that once were trees,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Black wraiths of bushes, airy traceries", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Remembering the hills. Then sleep made swift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The swinging of the Dipper and the lift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of stars that dwell upon the day’s frontier;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until at length the wheeling hollow sphere", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Began to fill. And just at morning-shine", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They landed at the Little Porcupine.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Again they slept and, putting off at night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They passed the Elk Horn Prairie on the right", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Halfway to dawn and Wolf Creek. One night more", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had vanished when they slept upon the shore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the Poplar’s mouth. And three had fled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When, black against the early morning red,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Fort that Henry builded heard their calls,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sentries’ rifles spurting from the walls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spilled drawling echoes. Then the gates swung wide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And shouting trappers thronged the riverside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To welcome back the homing voyageurs.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That day was spent in sorting out the furs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With eager talk of how the winter went;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with the growing night grew merriment.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hump and haunches of a bison cow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hung roasting at the heaped-up embers now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On Henry’s hearth. The backlog whined and popped", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, sitting squat or lounging elbow-propped,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shrewd traders in the merchandise of tales", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Held traffic, grandly careless how the scales", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tiptilted with a slight excessive weight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the roast was finished, how they ate!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there was that which set them singing too", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the deep bass music of the flue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While catgut screamed ecstatic in the lead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Encouraging the voices used and keyed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To vast and windy spaces.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Later came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gentler mood when, staring at the flame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Men ventured reminiscences and spoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About Kentucky people or the folk", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Back yonder in Virginia or the ways", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They knew in old St. Louis; till the blaze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell blue upon the hearth, and in the gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And melancholy stillness of the room", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They heard the wind of midnight wail outside.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then there was one who poked the logs and cried:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Is this a weeping drunk? I swear I’m like", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To tear my hair! Sing something lively, Mike!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Fink said nought; but after poring long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the logs, began an Irish song⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gently grieving thing like April rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That while it wakes old memories of pain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wakes also odors of the violet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A broken heart, it seemed, could ne’er forget", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The eyes of Nora, dead upon the hill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when he ceased the men sat very still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As hearing yet the low caressing note", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of some lost angel mourning in his throat.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And afterwhile Mike spoke: “Shure, now,” said he,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“ ’Tis in a woman’s eyes shtrong liquors be;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And if ye drink av thim⁠—and if ye drink⁠—”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For just a moment in the face of Fink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau beheld that angel yearning through;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wondering if Carpenter saw too,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He looked, and lo! the guileless fellow⁠—grinned!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "As dreaming water, stricken by a wind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gives up the imaged heaven that it knows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So Fink’s face lost the angel. He arose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And left the place without a word to say.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The morrow was a perfect April day;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor might one guess⁠—so friendly was the sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So kind the air⁠—what thread at length was spun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What shears were opened now to sever it.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No sullen mood was Mike’s. His biting wit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Made gay the trappers busy with the fur;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though more and ever more on Carpenter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His sallies fell, with ever keener whet.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Carpenter, unskilled in banter, met", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sharper sally with the broader grin.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But, by and by, Mike made a jest, wherein", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some wanton innuendo lurked and leered,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the Long Knife’s girl. The place went weird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With sudden silence as the tall man strode", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the room, nor lacked an open road", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the men. A glitter in his stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Belied the smile he bore; and, pausing there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With stiffened index finger raised and held", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the jester’s eyes, as though he spelled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The slow words out, he said: “We’ll have no jokes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In just that way about our women folks!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Fink guffawed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They would have fought again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had not the Major stepped between the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And talked the crisis by. And when ’twas past,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau, intent to end the strife at last,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Somehow persuaded Fink to make amends,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, as a proof that henceforth they were friends,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Proposed the shooting of the whisky cup.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Shure, b’y,” said Mike, “we’ll toss a copper up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And if ’tis heads I’ll thry me cunning first.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As fer me joke, the tongue of me is cursed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wid double j’ints⁠—so let it be forgot!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so it was agreed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They cleared a spot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flipped a coin that tinkled as it fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A tiny sound⁠—yet, like a midnight bell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That sets wild faces pressing at the pane,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau would often hear that coin again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In vivid dreams, to waken terrified.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas heads.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now the tall man stepped aside", "indent": 7 }, { "text": "And, beckoning Talbeau, he whispered: “Son,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If anything should happen, keep my gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For old time’s sake. And when the Major pays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In old St. Louis, drink to better days", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When friends were friends, with what he’s owing me.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat the little man laughed merrily", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And said: “Old Horse, you’re off your feed today;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But if you’ve sworn an oath to blow your pay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I guess the three of us can make it good!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike couldn’t miss a target if he would.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Well, maybe so,” said Carpenter, and smiled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A windless noon was brooding on the wild", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the clearing, eager for the show,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The waiting trappers chatted. Now Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Stepped off the range. The tall man took his place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The grin of some droll humor on his face;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when his friend was reaching for his head", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To set the brimming cup thereon, he said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“You won’t forget I gave my gun to you", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all my blankets and my fixin’s too?”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The small man laughed and, turning round, he cried:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“We’re ready, Mike!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A murmur ran and died", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the double line of eager men.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink raised his gun, but set it down again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And blew a breath and said: “I’m gittin’ dhry!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So howld yer noddle shtiddy, Bill, me b’y,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And don’t ye shpill me whisky!” Cedar-straight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tall man stood, the calm of brooding Fate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About him. Aye, and often to the end", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau would see that vision of his friend⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A man-flower springing from the fresh green sod,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While, round about, the bushes burned with God", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And mating peewees fluted in the brush.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They heard a gun lock clicking in the hush.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saw Fink sighting⁠—heard the rifle crack,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw beneath the spreading powder rack", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The tall man pitching forward.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Echoes fled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like voices in a panic. Then Mike said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Bejasus, and ye’ve shpilled me whisky, Bill!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A catbird screamed. The crowd stood very still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though bewitched.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“And can’t ye hear?” bawled Fink;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I say, I’m dhry⁠—and now ye’ve shpilled me drink!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He stooped to blow the gasses from his gun.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And now men saw Talbeau. They saw him run", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stoop to peer upon the prostrate man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where now the mingling blood and whisky ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From oozing forehead and the tilted cup.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the hush a sobbing cry grew up:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“My God! You’ve killed him, Mike!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then growing loud,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A wind of horror blew among the crowd", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And set it swirling round about the dead.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And over all there roared a voice that said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I niver mint to do it, b’ys, I swear!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The divil’s in me gun!” Men turned to stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wild-eyed upon the center of that sound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw Fink dash his rifle to the ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ’twere the hated body of his wrong.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Once more arose that wailing, like a song,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one who called and called upon his friend.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It seemed the end, and yet ’twas not the end.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A day that wind of horror and surprise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blew high; and then, as when the tempest dies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And only aspens prattle, as they will,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though pines win silence and the oaks are still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By furtive twos and threes the talk survived.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To some it seemed that men were longer lived", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who quarreled not over women. Others guessed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That love was bad for marksmanship at best⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The nerves, you know! Still others pointed out", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why Mike should have the benefit of doubt;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For every man, who knew a rifle, knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That there were days you’d split a reed in two,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Off-hand at fifty paces; then, one day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why, somehow, damn your eyes, you’d blaze away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And miss a bull! No doubt regarding that!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“But,” one replied, “ ’tis what you’re aiming at,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not what you hit, determines skill, you know!”⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An abstract observation, apropos", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of nothing in particular, but made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As just a contribution to the trade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of gunnery! And others would recall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The center of that silence in the hall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The night one lay there waiting, splendid, still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nothing left to wait for. Poor old Bill!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There went a man, by God! Who knew his like⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So meek in might? And some remembered Mike⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hearth-lit room⁠—the way he came to look", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon that face⁠—and how his shoulders shook", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With sobbing as he moaned: “My friend! My friend!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It seemed the end, and yet ’twas not the end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though men cared less to know what cunning gnome", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or eyeless thing of doom had ridden home", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deadly slug. And then there came a day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When Major Henry had a word to say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seemed, at last, to lay the ghost to rest.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He meant to seek the River of the West", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the range, immensely rich in furs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for the wiving prows of voyageurs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A virgin yearning. Yonder one might glide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thousand miles to sunset, where the tide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is tempered with an endless dream of May!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So much and more the Major had to say⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Words big with magic for the young men’s ears.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And finally he called for volunteers⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two men to hasten to the Moreau’s mouth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Meet Ashley’s party coming from the south", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bid them buy more horses at the Grand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the Rees. Then, pushing through the band,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike Fink stood forth, and after him, Talbeau.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now Henry thought ’twere wiser they should go", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By land, although the river trail, he knew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were better. But a wind of rumor blew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Up stream. About the region of the Knife,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed, the Grovans tarried, nursing strife", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because the Whites were favoring their foes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With trade for guns; and, looking on their bows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Grovans hated. So the rumor said.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thus it came to pass the new trail led", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About six days by pony to the south;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thence eastward, five should find the Moreau’s mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Ashley toiling up among the bars.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The still white wind was blowing out the stars", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When yawning trappers saw the two men row", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the river with their mounts in tow⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A red roan stallion and a buckskin mare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the ponies gain the far bank there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flounder up and shake themselves like dogs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the riders mount and breast the fogs", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flung down as wool upon the flat. They dip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rise and float, submerging to the hip,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Turn slowly into shadow men, and fade.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And some have said that when the ponies neighed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas like a strangled shriek; and far ahead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some ghostly pony, ridden by the dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Called onward like a bugle singing doom.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the valley floor, as with a broom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was swept by dawn, men saw the empty land.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Not now the Song shall tell of Henry’s band", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ascending to the Falls, nor how they crossed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Blackfoot trail, nor how they fought and lost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thrown back upon the Yellowstone to wait", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In vain for Ashley’s hundred. Yonder, Fate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Led southward through the fog, and thither goes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prescient Song.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The April sun arose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fell; and all day long the riders faced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A rolling, treeless, melancholy waste", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of yellow grass; for ’twas a rainless time,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor had the baby green begun to climb", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The steep-kneed hills, but kept the nursing draws.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And knee to knee they rode with scarce a pause,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save when the ponies drank; and scarce a word,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the haunting silence of a third,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who rode between them, shackled either tongue.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when along the sloughs the twilight flung", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blue haze, and made the hills seem doubly bleak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They camped beside a songless little creek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That crawled among the clumps of stunted plum", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Just coming into bud. And both sat dumb", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside a mewing fire, until the west", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was darkened and the shadows leaped and pressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About their little ring of feeble light.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, moved by some vague menace in the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink forced a laugh that wasn’t glad at all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And joked about a certain saddle gall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That troubled him⁠—a Rabelaisian quip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That in the good old days had served to strip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The drooping humor from the dourest jowl.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He heard the laughter of the prairie owl,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A goblin jeering. Gazing at the flame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau seemed not to hear. But when there came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A cry of kiotes, peering all about", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He said: “You don’t suppose they’ll dig him out?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I carried heavy stones till break of day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You don’t suppose they’ll come and paw away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The heavy stones I packed, and pester Bill?”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Huh uh,” Fink grunted; but the evening chill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed doubled on a sudden; so he sought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His blanket, wrapped it closely, thought and thought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till drowsy nonsense tumbled through his skull.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now at that time of night when comes a lull", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On stormy life; when even sorrow sleeps,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sentinels upon the stellar steeps", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sight morning, though the world is blind and dumb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink wakened at a whisper: “Mike! He’s come!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Look! Look!” And Mike sat up and blinked and saw.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It didn’t walk⁠—it burned along the draw⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tall, radiantly white! It wasn’t dead⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It smiled⁠—it had a tin cup on its head⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eh?⁠—Gone!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink stirred the embers to a flare.", "indent": 7 }, { "text": "What dream was this? The world seemed unaware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That anything at all had come to pass.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Contentedly the ponies nipped the grass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There in the darkness; and the night was still.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They slept no more, but nursed the fire until", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The morning broke; then ate and rode away.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They weren’t any merrier that day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And each spoke little, save when Fink would swear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And smirch the virtue of the buckskin mare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For picking quarrels with the roan he rode.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Did not the Northwind nag her like a goad,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And was there any other horse to blame?)", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The worried day dragged on and twilight came⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dusty gray. They climbed a hill to seek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some purple fringe of brush that marked a creek.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prairie seemed an endless yellow blur:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor might they choose but tarry where they were", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pass the cheerless night as best they could,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For they had seen no water-hole or wood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Since when the sun was halfway down the sky;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there would be no stars to travel by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So thick a veil of dust the great wind wove.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They staked their ponies in a leeward cove,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, rolling in their blankets, swooned away.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau awoke and stared. ’Twas breaking day!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So soon? It seemed he scarce had slept a wink!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He’d have another snooze, for surely Fink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed far from waking, sprawled upon the ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His loose mouth gaping skyward with a sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As of a bucksaw grumbling through a knot.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau dropped back and dreamed the sun was hot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his face. He tried but failed to stir;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereat he knew that he was Carpenter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hot-breatht wolves were sniffing round his head!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He wasn’t dead! He really wasn’t dead!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would no one come, would no one drive them off?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His cry for help was nothing but a cough,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For something choked him. Then a shrill long scream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cut knife-like through the shackles of his dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And once again he saw the lurid flare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of morning on the hills.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What ailed the mare?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She strained her tether, neighing. And the roan?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He squatted, trembling, with his head upthrown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And lashed his tail and snorted at the blast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps some prowling grizzly wandered past.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau sat up. What stifling air! How warm!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What sound was that? Perhaps a thunder storm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was working up. He coughed; and then it broke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon him how the air was sharp with smoke;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, leaping up, he turned and looked and knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What birdless dawn, unhallowed by the dew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came raging from the northwest! Half the earth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half the heavens were a burning hearth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fed fat with grass inflammable as tow!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shook Fink, yelling: “Mike, we’ve got to go!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All hell’s broke loose!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They cinched the saddles on", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With hands that fumbled; mounted and were gone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like rabbits fleeing from a kiote pack.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They crossed the valley, topped a rise, looked back,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor dared to gaze. The firm, familiar world,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed, was melting down, and Chaos swirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once more across the transient realms of form", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To scatter in the primal atom-storm", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The earth’s rich dust and potency of dreams.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Infernal geysers gushed, and sudden streams", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of rainbow flux went roaring up the skies", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through ghastly travesties of Paradise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where, drowsy in a tropic summertide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strange gaudy flowers bloomed and aged and died⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whole seasons in a moment. Bloody rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blown slant like April silver, spewed the plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To mock the fallow sod; and where it fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Anemones and violets of hell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Foreran the fatal summer.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Spurs bit deep.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now down the hill where shadow-haunted sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fell from the broken wind’s narcotic breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ponies plunged. A sheltered draw, where death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed brooding in the silence, heard them pass.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hollow, deep with tangled jointed grass,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Snatched at the frantic hoofs. Now up a slope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They clambered, blowing, at a stumbling lope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, reined upon the summit, wheeled to stare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stallion snorted, and the rearing mare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Screamed at the sight and bolted down the wind.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The writhing Terror, scarce a mile behind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Appeared to gain; while far to left and right", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its flanks seemed bending in upon the night⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ten-league python closing on its prey.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No guiding hand was needed for the way;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blind speed was all. So little Nature heeds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fate of men, these blew as tumbleweeds", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before that dwarfing, elemental rage.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A gray wolf bounded from a clump of sage;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A rabbit left its bunchgrass nest and ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside its foe; and neither dreaded Man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deadliest of all earth’s preying things.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A passing knoll exploded into wings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And prairie owls, befuddled by the light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went tumbling up like patches of the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The burning tempest tattered.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Leaning low,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gasping riders let the ponies go,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The little buckskin leading, while the roan", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strove hard a-flank, afraid to be alone", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And nickering at whiles. And he who led,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By brief hypnotic lapses comforted,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Recalled the broad Ohio, heard the horns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The way they used to sing those summer morns", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he and Mike and⁠—. There the dream went wrong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And through his head went running, like a song", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That sings itself: “He tried so hard to come", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And warn us; but the grave had made him dumb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ’twas to show he loved us that he smiled.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And of the other terror made a child", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whom often, for a panic moment’s span,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Projections from the conscience of the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pursued with glaring eyes and claws of flame.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For this the dead arose, for this he came⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That grin upon his face!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A blinding gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Crushed down; then, followed by a rolling boom,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There broke a scarlet hurricane of light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That swept the farthest reaches of the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where unsuspected hills leaped up aghast.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Already through the hollow they had passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So recently, the hounding Terror sped!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now the wind grew hotter. Overhead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Inverted seas of color rolled and broke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And from the combers of the litten smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A stinging spindrift showered.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "On they went,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unconscious of duration or extent,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of everything but that from which they fled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now, sloping to an ancient river bed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The prairie flattened. Plunging downward there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The riders suddenly became aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How surged, beneath, a mighty shadow-stream⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though the dying Prairie dreamed a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of yesterage when all her valleys flowed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Amazons, and monster life abode", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon her breast and quickened in her womb.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And from that rushing in the flame-smeared gloom", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unnumbered outcries blended in a roar.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The headlong ponies struck the sounding shore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And reared upon their haunches. Far and near,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The valley was a-flood with elk and deer", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And buffalo and wolves and antelope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whatsoever creature slough and slope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the path of terror had to give.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Torrential with the common will to live,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The river of unnumbered egos swept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The ponies with it. But the buckskin kept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The margin where the rabble frayed and thinned", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, breathing with the wheeze of broken wind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The stallion clung to her.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It came to pass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The valley yawned upon a sea of grass", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seemed to heave, as waves of gloom and glare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran over it; and, rising here and there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tall buttes made islands in the living tide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That roared about them. Still with swinging stride", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And rhythmic breath the little buckskin ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the herd, that opened like a fan", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And scattered. But the roan was losing ground.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His breathing gave a gurgling, hollow sound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though his life were gushing from his throat.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His whole frame quivered like a scuttled boat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That slowly sinks; nor did he seem to feel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his flank the biting of the steel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That made him bleed. Fink cut the rifle-boot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saddle-bags away, to give the brute", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Less burden.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now it happened, as they neared", "indent": 7 }, { "text": "A lofty butte whose summit glimmered weird", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beneath the lurid boiling of the sky,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau was startled by a frantic cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behind him; noted that he rode alone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, turning in the saddle, saw the roan", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Go stumbling down and wither to a heap.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And momently, between a leap and leap,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The love of self was mighty in the man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For now the Terror left the hills and ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With giant strides along the grassy plains.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dear Yesterdays fought wildly for the reins,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tomorrows for the spur. And then the mare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heeled to the sawing bit and pawed the air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And halted, prancing. Once again Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Looked back to where the sparks were blown as snow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before that blizzard blast of scorching light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw Fink running down the painted night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like some lost spirit fleeing from the Wrath.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "One horse⁠—and who should ride it? All he hath", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A man will give for life! But shall he give", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For living that which makes it good to live⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The consciousness of fellowship and trust?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let fools so prize a pinch of throbbing dust!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now Fink should ride, and let the rest be hid.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He bounded from the mare; but, as he did,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The panic-stricken pony wheeled about,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Won freedom with a lunge, and joined the rout", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of fleeing shadows.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Well, ’twas over now⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps it didn’t matter anyhow⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They’d go together now and hunt for Bill!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And momently the world seemed very still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About Talbeau. Then Fink was at his side,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blank horror in his face. “Come on!” he cried;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“The butte! We’ll climb the butte!” And once again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau knew fear.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now, gripping hands, the men", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scuttled and dodged athwart the scattered flight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of shapes that drifted in the flood of light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A living flotsam; reached the bare butte’s base,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went scrambling up its leaning leeward face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where the slope grew sheer, and huddled there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hotter, hotter, hotter grew the air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until their temples sang a fever tune.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The April night became an August noon.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then, near to swooning in a blast of heat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They heard the burning breakers boom and beat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About their lofty island, as they lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their gaping mouths pressed hard against the clay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fought for every breath. Nor could they tell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How long upon a blistered scarp in hell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They gasped and clung. But suddenly at last⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An age in passing, and a moment, passed⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The torture ended, and the cool air came;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, looking out, they saw the long slant flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Devour the night to leeward.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "By and by", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Drab light came seeping through the sullen sky.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They waited there until the morning broke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, like a misty moon amid the smoke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sun came stealing up.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They found a place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where rain had scarred the butte wall’s western face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With many runnels; clambered upward there⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And viewed a panorama of despair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wind had died, and not a sound arose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above those blackened leagues; for even crows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(The solitude embodied in a bird)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had fled that desolation. Nothing stirred,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save here and there a thin gray column grew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From where some draw still smouldered. And they knew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How universal quiet may appal", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As violence, and, even as a wall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sheer vacancy confine.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No horse, no gun!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nay, worse; no hint of water hole or run", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In all the flat or back among the hills!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mere hunger is a goad that, ere it kills,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May drive the lean far down the hardest road:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But thirst is both a snaffle and a load;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It gripped them now. When Mike made bold to speak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His tongue was like a stranger to his cheek.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Shure, b’y,” he croaked; “ ’tis Sunday morn in hell!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sound seemed profanation; on it fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The vast, rebuking silence.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Long they gazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About them, standing silent and amazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the summit. West and north and east", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They saw too far. But mystery, at least,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was in the south, where still the smoke concealed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The landscape. Vistas of the unrevealed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Invited Hope to stray there as it please.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And presently there came a little breeze", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Out of the dawn. As of a crowd that waits", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some imminent revealment of the Fates", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That toil behind the scenes, a murmur ’woke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Amid the hollow hush. And now the smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mysteriously stirs, begins to flow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And giant shadow bulks that loom below", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seem crowding dawnward. One by one they lift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the reek, and trail the ragged drift", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About their flanks. A melancholy scene!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gray buttes and giddy gulfs that yawn between⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Titan’s labyrinth! But see afar", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where yonder canyon like a purple scar", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cuts zigzag through the waste! Is that a gleam", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of water in its deeps?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A stream! A stream!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now scrambling down the runnels of the rain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They struck across the devastated plain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where losers of the night’s mad race were strewn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To wait the wolves and crows.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Mid-afternoon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beheld them stripping at the river’s bank.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They wallowed in the turbid stream and drank", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Delicious beakers in the liquid mud;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor drank alone, for here the burning flood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had flung its panting driftage in the dark.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The valley teemed with life, as though some Ark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That rode the deluge, spewed its cargo here:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Elk, antelope, wolves, bison, rabbits, deer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Owls, crows⁠—the greatest mingled with the least.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when the men had drunk, they had a feast", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of liver, bolted dripping from a cow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dead at the water’s lip.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Blue shadow now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was mounting slowly up the canyon steep;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, seeking for a better place to sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They wandered down the margin of the stream.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas scarce more real than walking in a dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of lonely craters in a lunar land", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That never thrilled with roots. On either hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dwarfing summits soared, grotesque, austere,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And jagged fissures, sentinelled with fear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Led back to mysteries of purple gloom.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They came to where a coulee, like a flume,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose steeply to the prairie. Thither hurled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A roaring freshet of the herd had swirled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cascading to the river bed; and there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the trampelled carcasses, the mare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lay bloated near the water. She had run", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With saddle, panniers, powder-horn and gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the wind-thewed fillies of the fire,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And won the heat, to perish at the wire⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A plucky little brute!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They made a camp", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Well up above the crawling valley damp,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And where no prowling beast might chance to come.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There was no fuel; but a flask of rum,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thanks to the buckskin, dulled the evening chill.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And both grew mellow. Memories of Bill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And other nights possessed the little man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And on and on his reminiscence ran,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As ’twere the babble of a brook of tears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gone groping for the ocean of dead years", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Too far away to reach. And by and by", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The low voice sharpened to an anguished cry:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“O Mike! I said you couldn’t miss the cup!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then something snapped in Fink and, leaping up,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seized Talbeau and shook him as a rat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is shaken by a dog. “Enough of that!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He yelled; “And, ’faith, Til sind ye afther Bill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Per wan more wurrd! Ye fool! I mint to kill!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, moind me now, ye’d better howld yer lip!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau felt murder shudder in the grip", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That choked and shook and flung him. Faint and dazed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He sprawled upon the ground. And anger blazed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Within him, like the leaping Northern Light", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That gives no heat. He wished to rise and fight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But could not for the horror of it all.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Wild voices thronged the further canyon wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As Fink raved on; and every word he said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like a mutilation of the dead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By some demonic mob.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And when at length", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He heard Mike snoring yonder, still the strength", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To rise and kill came not upon Talbeau.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So many moments of the Long Ago", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came pleading; and the gentle might thereof", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "United with the habit of old love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To weave a spell about the sleeping man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then drowsily the pondered facts began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To merge and group, as running colors will,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In new and vaguer patterns. Mike and Bill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were bickering again. And someone said:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Let’s flip a copper; if it’s tails, he’s dead;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If heads, he’s living. That’s the way to tell!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A spinning copper jangled like a bell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But even as he stooped to pick it up,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behold! the coin became a whisky cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bored smoothly through the center! “Look at this!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He seemed to shout: “I knew Mike couldn’t miss!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bill only played at dying for a joke!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then laughter filled his dream, and he awoke.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dawn was like a stranger’s cold regard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the lifeless land, grotesquely scarred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As by old sorrow; and the man’s dull sense", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of woe, become objective and immense,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed waiting there to crush him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink still slept;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And even now, it seemed, his loose mouth kept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A shape for shameless words, as though a breath,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deep drawn, might set it gloating o’er the death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one who loved its jesting and its song.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And while Talbeau sat pondering the wrong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So foully done, and all that had been killed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how the laughter of the world was stilled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all its wine poured out, he seemed to hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though a spirit whispered in his ear:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You won’t forget I gave my gun to you!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And instantly the deep conviction grew", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That ’twas a plea for justice from the slain.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ah, not without a hand upon the rein,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor with an empty saddle, had the mare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Outrun the flame that she might carry there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The means of vengeance!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet⁠—if Mike were dead!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shuddered, gazing where the gray sky bled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With morning, like a wound. He couldn’t kill;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did it seem to be the way of Bill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To bid him do it. Yet the gun was sent.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For what?⁠—To make Mike suffer and repent?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But how?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Awhile his apathetic gaze", "indent": 5 }, { "text": "Explored yon thirst- and hunger-haunted maze,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As though he might surprise the answer there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The answer came. That region of despair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should be Mike’s Purgatory! More than Chance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had fitted circumstance to circumstance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That this should be! He knew it! And the plan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus suddenly conceived, possessed the man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed the might of Bill had been reborn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He took the gun and powder horn,", "indent": 4 }, { "text": "The water flasks and sun-dried bison meat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The panniers gave; then climbing to a seat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the sleeper, shouted down to him:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Get up!” Along the further canyon rim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A multitude of voices swelled the shout.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink started up and yawned and looked about,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bewildered. Once again the clamor ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the canyon wall. The little man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now squinting down the pointed rifle, saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lifted face go pale, the stubborn jaw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Droop nervelessly. A twinge of pity stirred", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Within him, and he marvelled as he heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His own voice saying what he wished unsaid:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“It’s Bill’s own rifle pointing at your head;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Go east, and think of all the wrong you’ve done!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink glanced across his shoulder where the sun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shone level on the melancholy land;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, feigning that he didn’t understand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Essayed a careless grin that went awry.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Bejasus, and we’ll not go there, me b’y,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He said; “for shure ’tis hell widout the lights!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That one-eyed stare along the rifle sights", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was narrowed to a slit. A sickening shock", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ran through him at the clucking of the lock.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He clutched his forehead, stammering: “Talbeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ve been yer frind⁠—.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“I’ll give you three to go,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The other said, “or else you’ll follow Bill!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One⁠—two⁠—.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fink turned and scuttled down the hill;", "indent": 7 }, { "text": "And at the sight the watcher’s eyes grew dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For something old and dear had gone from him⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His pride in one who made a clown of Death.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alas, how much the man would give for breath!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How easily Death made of him the clown!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now scrambling for a grip, now rolling down,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike landed at the bottom of the steep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, plunging in the river belly deep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Struck out in terror for the other shore.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At any moment might the rifle’s roar", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Crash through that rearward silence, and the lead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Come snarling like a hornet at his head⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He felt the spot! Then presently the flood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Began to cool the fever in his blood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And furtive self-derision stung his pride.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He clambered dripping up the further side", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And felt himself a fool! He wouldn’t go!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That little whiffet yonder was Talbeau!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And who was this that he, Mike Fink, had feared?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He’d go and see.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A spurt of smoke appeared", "indent": 9 }, { "text": "Across the river, and a bullet struck⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Spat ping⁠—beside him, spewing yellow muck", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his face. Then every cliff and draw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rehearsed the sullen thunders of the law", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He dared to question. Stricken strangely weak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He clutched the clay and watched the powder reek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Trail off with glories of the level sun.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw Talbeau pour powder in his gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And ram the wad. A second shot might kill!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That brooding like a woman over Bill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had set the fellow daft. A crazy man!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The notion spurred him. Springing up, he ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To where a gully cleft the canyon rim", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, with that one-eyed fury after him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fled east.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The very buttes, grotesque and weird,", "indent": 6 }, { "text": "Seemed startled at the sight of what he feared", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And powerless to shield him in his need.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas more than man he fled from; ’twas a deed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Become alive and subtle as the air,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That turned upon the doer. Everywhere", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It gibbered in the echoes as he fled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A stream of pictures flitted through his head:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The quiet body in the hearth-lit hall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The grinning ghost, the flight, the stallion’s fall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The flame girt isle, the spectral morning sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the finding of the dead man’s gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside the glooming river. Flowing by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These fused and focused in the deadly eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He felt behind him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Suddenly the ground", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heaved up and smote him with a crashing sound;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the vivid moment of his fall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He thought he heard the snarling rifle ball", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And felt the one-eyed fury crunch its mark.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Expectant of the swooping of the dark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He raised his eyes.⁠—The sun was shining still;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It peeped about the shoulder of a hill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And viewed him with a quizzifying stare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He looked behind him. Nothing followed there;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Silence, big with dread-begotten sound,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dismayed him; and the steeps that hemmed him round", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed plotting with a more than human guile.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He rose and fled; but every little while", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sense of eyes behind him made him pause;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And always down the maze of empty draws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed a sound of feet abruptly ceased.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now trotting, walking now, he labored east;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when at length the burning zenith beat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon him, and the summits swam with heat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And on the winding gullies fell no shade,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He came to where converging gulches made", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A steep-walled basin for the blinding glare.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here, fanged and famished, crawled the prickly pear;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Malevolent with thirst, the soap weed thrust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its barbed stilettos from the arid dust,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Defiant of the rain-withholding blue:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And in the midst a lonely scrub oak grew,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A crooked dwarf that, in the pictured bog", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of its own shadow, squatted like a frog.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fink, panting, flung himself beneath its boughs.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A mighty magic in the noonday drowse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Allayed the driving fear. A waking dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fulfilled a growing wish. He saw the stream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Far off as from a space-commanding height.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now a fantasy of rapid flight", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Transported him above the sagging land,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And with a sudden swoop he seemed to stand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once more upon the shimmering river’s brink.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His eyes drank deep; but when his mouth would drink,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A giant hornet from the other shore⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The generating center of a roar", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That shook the world⁠—snarled by.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He started up,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw the basin filling as a cup", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With purple twilight! Gazing all around", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where still the flitting ghost of some great sound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Troubled the crags a moment, then was mute,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw along the shoulder of a butte,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A good three hundred paces from the oak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A slowly spreading streak of rifle smoke", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And knew the deadly eye was lurking there.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He fled again.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "About him everywhere", "indent": 8 }, { "text": "Amid the tangled draws now growing dim,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Weird witnesses took cognizance of him", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And told abroad the winding way he ran.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He halted only when his breath began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To stab his throat. And lo, the staring eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was quenched with night! No further need he fly", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till dawn. And yet⁠—. He held his breath to hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If footsteps followed. Silence smote his ear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The gruesome silence of the hearth-lit hall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "More dread than sound. Against the gully wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shrank and huddled with his eyes shut tight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For fear a presence, latent in the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should walk before him.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then it seemed he ran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through regions alien to the feet of Man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A weary way despite the speed of sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And came upon a river flowing deep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between black crags that made the sky a well.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And eerily the feeble starlight fell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the flood with water lilies strown.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when he stooped, the stream began to moan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And suddenly from every lily pad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A white face bloomed, unutterably sad", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bloody browed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A swift, erasing flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Across the dusky picture, morning came.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike lay a moment, blinking at the blue;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the fear of yesterday broke through", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The clinging drowse. For lo, on every side", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The paling summits watched him, Argus-eyed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In hushed anticipation of a roar.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He fled.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All day, intent to see once more", "indent": 5 }, { "text": "The open plain before the night should fall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He labored on. But many a soaring wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Annulled some costly distance he had won;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And misdirected gullies, white with sun,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed spitefully to baffle his desire.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deeps went blue; on mimic dome and spire", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The daylight faded to a starry awe.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike slept; and lo, they marched along the draw⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or rather burned⁠—tall, radiantly white!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A hushed procession, tunnelling the night,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They came, with lips that smiled and brows that bled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And each one bore a tin cup on its head,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A brimming cup. But ever as they came", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before him, like a draught-struck candle flame", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They shuddered and were snuffed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas deep night yet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When Mike awoke and felt the terror sweat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon his face, the prickling of his hair.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Afraid to sleep, he paced the gully there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the taller buttes were growing gray.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He brooded much on flowing streams that day.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As with a weight, he stooped; his feet were slow;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shuffled. Less and less he feared Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Behind him. More and more he feared the night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before him. Any hazard in the light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or aught that might befall ’twixt living men,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were better than to be alone again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And meet that dream!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The deeps began to fill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With purple haze. Bewildered, boding ill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A moaning wind awoke. ’Twould soon be dark.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike pondered. Twice Talbeau had missed the mark.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps he hadn’t really meant to hit.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And surely now that flaring anger fit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had burned away. It wasn’t like the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To hold a grudge. Mike halted, and began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To grope for words regretful of the dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Persuasive words about a heart that bled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Bill. ’Twas all a terrible mistake.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Plase now, a little dhrop fer owld toime’s sake!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With troublesome insistence, that refrain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Kept running through the muddle of his brain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And disarranged the words he meant to speak.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The trickle of a tear along his cheek", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Consoled him. Soon his suffering would end.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau would see him weeping for his friend⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talbeau had water!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now the heights burned red", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To westward. With a choking clutch of dread", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He noted how the dusk was gathering", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Along the draws⁠—a trap about to spring.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He cupped his hands about his mouth and cried:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Talbeau! Talbeau!” Despairing voices died", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the summits, and the lost wind pined.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It made Talbeau seem infinitely kind⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The one thing human in a ghostly land.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where was he? Just a touch of that warm hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would thwart the dark! Mike sat against a wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And brooded.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "By and by a skittering fall", "indent": 8 }, { "text": "Of pebbles at his back aroused the man.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He scrambled to his feet and turned to scan", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The butte that sloped above him. Where the glow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still washed the middle height, he saw Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Serenely perched upon a ledge of clay!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Mike forgot the words he meant to say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The fitted words, regretful of his deed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A forthright, stark sincerity of need", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rough hewed the husky, incoherent prayer", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He shouted to that Lord of water there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Above the gloom. A little drop to drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For old time’s sake!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Talbeau regarded Fink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Awhile in silence; then his thin lips curled.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“You spilled the only drink in all the world!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Go on,” he said, “and think of what you’ve done!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beyond the pointed muzzle of his gun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He saw the big man wither to a squat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tremble, like a bison when the shot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Just nips the vital circle. Then he saw", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A stooping figure hurry down the draw,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grow dim, and vanish in the failing light.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas long before Talbeau could sleep that night.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some questioner, insistently perverse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Assailed him and compelled him to rehearse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The justifying story of the friend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Betrayed and slain. But when he reached the end,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still unconvinced the questioner was there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To taunt him with that pleading of despair⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For old time’s sake! Sleep brought him little rest;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For what the will denied, the heart confessed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In mournful dreams. And when the first faint gray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aroused him, and he started on his way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He knew the stubborn questioner had won.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No brooding on the wrong that Mike had done", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could still that cry: “Plase now, fer owld toime’s sake,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little dhrop!” It made his eyeballs ache", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With tears of pity that he couldn’t shed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No other dawn, save that when Bill lay dead", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And things began to stare about the hall,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had found the world so empty. After all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What man could know the way another trod?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And who was he, Talbeau, to play at God?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let one who curbs the wind and brews the rain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Essay the subtler portioning of pain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To souls that err! Talbeau would make amends!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once more they’d drink together and be friends.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How often they had shared!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He struck a trot,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Eyes fixed upon the trail. The sun rose hot;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Noon poured a blinding glare along the draws;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still the trail led on, without a pause", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To show where Mike had rested. Thirst began", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To be a burden on the little man;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His progress dwindled to a dragging pace.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when he tipped the flask, that pleading face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Arose before him, and a prayer denied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came mourning back to thrust his need aside⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little drop! How Mike must suffer now!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I’m not so very thirsty, anyhow,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He told himself. And almost any bend", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Might bring him on a sudden to his friend.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He’d wait and share the water.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Every turn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Betrayed a hope. The west began to burn;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flared red; went ashen; and the stars came out.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dreams, colored by an unacknowledged doubt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perplexed the trail he followed in his sleep;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dreary hours before the tallest steep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Saw dawn, Talbeau was waiting for the day.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Till noon he read a writing in the clay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That bade him haste; for now from wall to wall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The footmarks wandered, like the crabbèd scrawl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An old man writes. They told a gloomy tale.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then the last dim inkling of a trail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was lost upon a patch of hardened ground!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The red west saw him, like a nervous hound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That noses vainly for the vanished track,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still plunging into gullies, doubling back,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pausing now and then to hurl a yell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Among the ululating steeps. Night fell.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The starlit buttes still heard him panting by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And summits weird with midnight caught his cry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To answer, mocking.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Morning brought despair;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor did he get much comfort of his prayer:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“God, let me find him! Show me where to go!”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some greater, unregenerate Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was God that morning; for the lesser heard", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His own bleak answer echoed word for word:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Go on, and think of all the wrong you’ve done!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "His futile wish to hasten sped the sun.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That day, as he recalled it in the dark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was like the spinning of a burning arc.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He nodded, and the night was but a swoon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And morning neighbored strangely with the noon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And evening was the noon’s penumbral haze.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No further ran the reckoning of days.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas evening when at last he stooped to stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a puzzling trail. A wounded bear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seemed, had dragged its rump across the sands", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That floored the gullies now. But sprawling hands", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had marked the margin! Why was that? No doubt", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mike too had tarried here to puzzle out", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What sort of beast had passed. And yet⁠—how queer⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas plain no human feet had trodden here!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A trail of hands! That throbbing in his brain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Confused his feeble efforts to explain;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hazily he wondered if he slept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dreamed again. Tenaciously he kept", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His eyes upon the trail and labored on,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lest, swooping like a hawk, another dawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should snatch that hope away.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A sentry crow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon a sunlit summit, saw Talbeau", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And croaked alarm. The noise of many wings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In startled flight, and raucous chatterings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Arose. What feast was interrupted there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little way ahead? ’Twould be the bear!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He plodded on. The intervening space", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sagged under him; and, halting at the place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where late the flock had been, he strove to break", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A grip of horror. Surely now he’d wake", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And see the morning quicken in the skies!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The thing remained!⁠—It hadn’t any eyes⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The pilfered sockets bore a pleading stare!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A long, hoarse wail of anguish and despair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Aroused the echoes. Answering, arose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Once more the jeering chorus of the crows.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }