{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-shooting-of-dan-mcgrew",
 "title": "The Shooting of Dan McGrew",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 13,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 58,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 89,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for bear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he’d do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I turned my head⁠—and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ragtime kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands⁠—my God! but that man could play!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then you’ve a haunch what the music meant⁠ ⁠… hunger and night and the stars.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman’s love;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge⁠—the lady that’s known as Lou.)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I guess I’ll make it a spread misere,” said Dangerous Dan McGrew.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The music almost died away⁠ ⁠… then it burst like a pent-up flood;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it seemed to say, “Repay, repay,” and my eyes were blind with blood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the lust awoke to kill, to kill⁠ ⁠… then the music stopped with a crash,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, “Boys,” says he, “you don’t know me, and none of you care a damn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I’ll bet my poke they’re true,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That one of you is a hound of hell⁠ ⁠… and that one is Dan McGrew.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I’m not denying it’s so.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woman that kissed him and⁠—pinched his poke⁠—was the lady that’s known as Lou.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}