FRONTIER BALLADS

By JOSEPH MILLS HANSON

With Pictures in Color and Other Drawings by Maynard Dixon

1910

[Original]

[Original]

CONTENTS

[ MY CREED ]

[ I. SOLDIER SONGS ]

[ DAKOTA MILITIA ]

[ THE GIRL OF THE YANKTON STOCKADE ]

[ THE BALLAD OF SERGEANT ROSS ]

[ THE SPRINGFIELD CALIBRE FIFTY ]

[ A GARRISON CHRISTMAS ]

[ TROOP HORSES ]

[ A KHAKI KICK ]

[ SERGEANT NOONAN EXPLAINS ]

[ LARAMIE TRAIL ]

[ II. PRAIRIE SONGS ]

[ THE CALL OF THE WIND ]

[ THE FUR TRADERS ]

[ COWBOY SONG ]

[ CHRISTMAS EVE AT KIMBALL ]

[ A LAMENT ]

[ JESUS GARCIA ]

[ A CHRISTMAS LETTER ]

[ THE COYOTEVILLE PEACE MEETING ]

[ THE SONG OF THE WINCHESTER ]

[ PRAIRIE FIRE ]

[ III. RIVER SONGS ]

[ THE MISSOURI ]

[ THE OLD CARRY ]

[ JAKE DALE ]

[ THE ENGINEER OF THE "GOLDEN HIND" ]

[ THE "PAULINE" ]

[ AFTERGLOW ]

MY CREED

NOW, this is the simple, living faith of a humble heart and mind,

Drunk up from the storm-brewed Western streams, breathed in
with the prairie wind.

My paints are crude and my pictures rude, but if some worth
they show

Which those may see who have thoughts as free, the rest may
let them go.

I hold that the things which make earth good may work most
harm in use

If the wit of men heed not the line 'twixt temperance and abuse,

For speech or mood, or drink or food may be a curse at will,

Though, rightly weighed, they only aid the cup of life to fill.

I hold that the silent sea and plain, the mountain, wood, and
down.

Are better haunts for the feet of men than the streets of the
roaring town,

And that those who tread for the price of bread in the thronging
hives of toil

Will stronger grow with the more they know of the kiss of the
virgin soil.

I hold that our sons should learn to love, not gods of gold and
greed,

But the virile men of brain and brawn who served our country's
need,

And should more delight in a clean-cut fight, stout blade and
courage whole,

That the morbid skill of a critic's drill in the core of a sin-sick
soul.

Three stars that shine on the trail of life can make man's
pathway bright,

And one is the strength of the living God, that stands in his
heart upright,

And one is a noble woman's love, on which his heart may lean,

And one is the sight of his country's flag, to keep his courage
keen.

Who knows the balm of the summer's calm or the chords of the
blizzard's hymn

And finds not God in blast and breeze, his sense is strangely dim.

For he whose ear is attuned can hear the very planets sing

That the soul of man, by a God-wrought plan, is the heir of
creation's King.

Who feels the joy of the golden days with her who shares his
mood

In the sun-washed wastes of the prairie hills or the breaks of
the tangled wood;

Who has won the fate of a steel-true mate, real comrade, friend
and wife,

He tastes the kiss of Elysian bliss in instant, earthly life.

Who sees the gleam of the Stars and Stripes, on land or sea
displayed,

Atilt in the reek of the battle-smoke or aloft o'er the marts of
trade—

Unless his veins are the sluggish drains for the blood of a craven race.—

He will gain new life for a better strife, whatever the odds he
face.

So that is the rede and the homely creed of one who has spelled
it forth

In the rivers' sweep and the splendors deep of the stars of the
hardy North;

To some, I ween, it may seem but mean; too short, too blunt, too plain,

But if those I touch who have felt as much, it will not have been
in vain.

I. SOLDIER SONGS

DAKOTA MILITIA

(1862)

NO "scare-heads" in big city papers,

No "puffs" in Department reports,

No pictures by "special staff artists"

Of assaults on impregnable forts;

We are far from the war-vexed Potomac,

Our fights are too small to make news;

We are merely Dakota militia,

Patrolling the frontier for Sioux.

Three hundred-odd "empire builders,"

Gathered in from three hundred-odd claims,

Far scattered across the wide prairies

From Pierre to the mouth of the James.

Perhaps they seemed little or nothing,

Our losses, our toil, and our pain,

The rush of the war ponies, tearing

Through cornfields and yellowing grain;

The whoop of the hostile at midnight,

The glare of the flaming log shacks,

A beacon of hate and destruction

As we fled, with the foe at our backs;

Our women and young driven, weeping,

Exhausted, half-naked, afraid,

To the refugee huts of Vermillion

Or the sun-smitten Yankton stockade.

Small things to a Nation embattled,

But great to the pioneer band

Who are blazing the roads of the future

Through the wastes of a wilderness land.

We plod past the desolate coulées

In the sweltering afternoon heat.

While the far ridges shine in a waving blue line

Where the earth and the brazen sky meet.

No sound save the hoofs of the column

As they swish through the dry prairie grass,

No life anywhere save a hawk, high in air,

Gazing down as we wearily pass.

There is never a foe we may grapple

In the heat of a steel-clashing fray.

For the quarry we hunt is a shadow in front

That flits, and comes never to bay;

A feather of smoke to the zenith,

The print of a hoof in the sod,

A shot from the grass where the far flankers pass

Sending one more poor comrade to God.

Would we rest when the day's work is over

And the stars twinkle out in the sky?

There is double patrol round the lean water-hole

And the picketed horses hard by.

Breast-down in the rain-rutted gully.

With muskets clutched close in our hands,

The hours of night drag their heavy-winged flight

Like Eternity's slow falling sands.

While the Great Dipper, pinned to the Pole Star,

Swings low in the dome of the North

And, faint through the dark, sounds the prairie wolf's bark

Or a snake from the weeds rustles forth.

And the darkness that chokes like a vapor

Is thronged with the visions which come

Of children and wife and the dear things of life

That peopled the lost cabin home.

Till the East flushes red with the morning

And the dawn-wind springs fresh o'er the plain,

And the reveille's note from the bugle's clear throat

Calls us up to our labors again.

We were not in the fight at Antietam,

We never have seen Wilson's Creek,

We were guiding our trains over Iowa's plains

While the shells at Manassas fell thick,

But we're waging a war for a new land

As the East wages war for the old,

That the mountains and plains of the red man's domains

May be brought to Columbia's fold,

And though only a squad of militia

That the armies back East never knew,

We are playing a game which is largely the same

With the truculent, turbulent Sioux.

[Original]

THE GIRL OF THE YANKTON STOCKADE

YES, it's pretty, this town. And it's always been so;

We pioneers picked it for beauty, you know.

See the far-rolling bluffs; mark the trees, how they hide

All its streets, and, beyond, the Missouri, bank-wide,

Swinging down through the bottoms. Up here on the height

Is the college. Eh, sightly location? You're right!

It has grown, you may guess, since I've been here; but still

It is forty-five years since I looked from this hill

One morning, and saw in the stockade down there

Our women and children all gathered at prayer,

While we, their defenders, with muskets in rest

Lay waiting the Sioux coming out of the West.

They had swept Minnesota with bullet and brand

Till her borders lay waste as a desert of sand,

When we in Dakota awakened to find

That the red flood had risen and left us behind.

Then we rallied to fight them,—Sioux, Sissetons, all

Who had ravaged unchecked to the gates of Saint Paul.

Is it strange, do you think, that the women took fright

That morning, and prayed; that men, even, turned white

When over the ridge where the college now looms

We caught the first glitter of lances and plumes

And heard the dull trample of hoofs drawing nigh,

Like the rumble of thunder low down in the sky?

Such sounds wrench the nerves when there's little to see;

It seemed madness to stay, it was ruin to flee.

But, handsome and fearless as Anthony Wayne,

Our captain, Frank Ziebach, kept hold on the rein,

Like a bugle his voice made us stiffen and thrill—

"Stand steady, boys, steady! And fire to kill!"

So the most of us stayed. But when dangers begin

You will always find some who are yellow within.

We had a few such, who concluded to steer

For the wagon-train, parked in the centre and rear.

They didn't stay long! But you've heard, I dare say,

Of the girl who discouraged their running away.

What, no? Never heard of Miss Edgar? Why, sir,

Dakota went wild with the praises of her!

As sweet as a hollyhock, slender and tall,

And brave as the sturdiest man of us all.

By George, sir, a heroine, that's what she made.

When her spirit blazed out in the Yankton stockade!

The women were sobbing, for every one knew

She must blow out her brains if the redskins broke through,

When into their midst, fairly gasping with fright,

Came the panic-struck hounds who had fled from the fight.

They trampled the weak in their blind, brutal stride,

Made straight for the wagons and vanished inside.

Then up rose Miss Edgar in anger and haste

And grasped the revolver that hung at her waist;

She walked to the wagon which nearest her lay,

She wrenched at the back-flap and tore it away,

Then aiming her gun at the fellow beneath

She held it point-blank to his chattering teeth.

"Go back to your duty," she cried, "with the men!

Go back, or you'll never see sunrise again!

Do you think, because only the women are here,

You can skulk behind skirts with your dastardly fear?

Get out on the ground. Take your gun. About, face!

And don't look around till you're back in your place!"

Well, he minded; what's more, all the others did, too.

That girl cleared the camp of the whole scurvy crew,

For a pistol-point, hovering under his nose,

Was an argument none of them cared to oppose.

Yet so modest she was that she colored with shame

When the boys on the line began cheering her name!

Well, that's all; just an echo of old border strife

When the sights on your gun were the guide-posts of life.

Harsh times breed strong souls, by eternal decree,

Who can breast them and win—but it's always struck me

That the Lord did an extra good job when He made

Miss Edgar, the girl of the Yankton stockade.

[Original]

[Original]

THE BALLAD OF SERGEANT ROSS

THE south wind's up at the break of dawn

From the dun Missouri's breast,

It has tossed the grass of the Council Hill

And wakened the flames on its crest;

The flames of the sentry fires bright,

Ablaze on the prairies pale,

Where sixty men of the Frontier Corps

Are guarding the Government Trail.

A rattle of hoofs from the northern hills,

A steed with a sweat-wrung hide

And Olaf Draim, of the Peska Claim,

Swings off at the captain's side.

A limb of the sturdy Swedes is he,

Marauders in days of old,

But the swart of his face is stricken white

And the grip of his hand is cold.

"Now, hark ye, men of the Frontier Corps,

I ride from the Beaver Creek,

Where I saw a sight at the grim midnight

That might turn a strong man weak.

"Chief Black Bear's out from the Crow Creek lands,

The buzzards his track have showed;

Last eve he pillaged at Old Fort James,

To-day on the Firesteel road,

"And Corporal Stowe, of the Frontier Corps,

On furlough to reap his grain,

At the Peska stage-house lieth dead

With his wife and his children twain."

Then up and spoke First Sergeant Ross,

Who had bunked with Corporal Stowe:

"By the glory of God, they shall pay in blood

The debt of that dastard blow!

"Ye know the path to the Crow Creek lands;

It is sown with this spawn of hell,

And there's deep ravine and there's plum-hedge green

To shelter a foeman well.

"Now, who of my comrades mounts with me

For a murdered mess-mate's wrong,

That the Sioux who rides with those scalps at his side

May swing from a hempen thong?"

Of three-score men there were only ten

Would gird for that chase of death.

Quoth Ross: "As ye please. For the cur, his fleas,

But men for the rifle's breath."

They have tightened cinches and passed the lines

Ere the lowland mists have flown;

The men are astride of the squadron's best,

And Ross, of the Captain's roan.

They ride till the crickets have sought the shade;

They ride till the sun-motes glance;

And they have espied on a far hillside

The whirl of the Sioux scalp-dance.

Then it's up past the smouldering stage-house barn

And out by the well-curb's marge;

The Sioux are a-leap for the tether-ropes:—

"Revolvers! Guide centre! Charge!"

The Sioux, they flee like a wild wolf-pack

At the flick of the shot-tossed sod,

Six braves have lurched to the fore fetlocks

And two of the Sergeant's squad.

But Ross has tightened his sabre-belt

And given the roan his head,

And set his pace for a single chase,

A furlong's length ahead.

He has set his pace for the chief, Black Bear,

Who shrinks from a strong man's strife

But flaunts in the air the long, brown hair

Of the scalp of the Corporal's wife.

The eight, they follow like swirled snow-spume,

A-drive o'er an ice-bound bar,

But the redskin's track is the dim cloud-wrack

That streams in the sky afar.

They ride till the hearts of their steeds are dead

And they gallop with lolling tongues,

And the tramp of their feet is a rhythmic beat

To the sob of their panting lungs.

And two are down in a prairie draw

And three on a chalk-stone ledge.

And three have won to the Bon Homme Run

And stuck in the marsh-land sedge.

But Black Bear's horse still holds the course,

Though her breath is a thick-drawn moan,

And a length behind is the straining stride

Of the Captain's steel-limbed roan.

The Sergeant rides with a loose-thrown rein,

Nor sabre nor shoot will he

Till the pony has pitched at a gopher mound

And flung her rider free;

And Ross has wrenched the knife from his hand

And smitten him to the ground;—

"Did ye think to win to the Bijou Hills,

Ye whelp of a Blackfoot hound?

"I had riddled your carcass this six miles back

And left ye to rot on the plain,

Had the blood of the slaughtered not called on me

That I hail ye to Peska again,

"To point this lesson to all your tribe.

That the price of a white man's soul

No longer goes, in the mart of death,

Unpaid to its last dark goal.

"Wherefore, that your tribesmen may see and feel

The cost of a white man's wrong,

And to sweeten the rest of my mess-mate's kin,

Ye shall swing from a hempen thong."

He has slung the chief to the saddle-bow,

Triced up in his own raw-hide,

And has borne him back to the stage-house yard,

All bleak on the green hillside.

And they swung him at dawn from a scaffold stout,

As a warning to all his kind,

To fatten the birds and to scare the herds

And to sport with the prairie wind.

[Original]

THE SPRINGFIELD CALIBRE FIFTY

WAS wrought of walnut blocks and rolled rod steel,

I was hammered, lathed, and mandrelled, stock and plate,

I was gauged and tested, bayonet to heel,

Then shipped for service, twenty in a crate.

For I was the calibre fifty,

Hi!—dough-boys, you haven't forgot

The click of my tumblers shifty

And the kick of the butt when I shot?

I was nothing too light on your shoulder,

You were glad when you stacked me o' nights,

But I'd drill an Apach'

From the thousand-yard scratch

If you'd only hold straight on the sights—old sights!

My trusty old Buffington sights!

In oil-soaked chests at Watervliet I've laid,

I have rusted in Vancouver through the rains,

I have scorched on Fort Mohave's baked parade,

And caked with sand at Sedgwick on the plains.

For I led every march on the border,

And I taught every rookie to fight;

Though he'd curse me in close marching order,

Lord!—he'd hug me on picket at night

As he thought of the herd-guard at Buford

When Sitting Bull swooped within reach,

And 'twas every man's life,

It was bullet and knife

Had my cartridges jammed in the breech—lock breech!

In my solid block, hammer-lock breech!

It was I who lashed the Modocs from their lair

With Wheaton in the Tule Lava Bed;

It was I who drove Chief Joseph to despair

When I streaked the slopes of Bear Paw with his dead.

For I was a proof most impressive—

The Springfield the infantry bore—

To redskins with spirits aggressive

That peace is more healthful than war;

I showed them on Musselshell River

And again, yet more plain, at Slim Butte;

They were plucky as sin

But they had to come in

When they found how the Springfield could shoot—

Shoot, shoot!

How my blue-bottle barrel could shoot!

I was Vengeance when, with Miles through trackless snow,

The "fighting Fifth" took toll for Custer's fall;

I was Justice when we flayed Geronimo;

I was Mercy to the famished horde of Gall.

Oh, I was slow-plodding and steady;

Not hot, like the carbine, to raid,

But when he found trouble too ready

He was glad of his big brother's aid;

For sometimes he'd scatter the outposts,

Then wait, if the foe proved too stout,

Till, at "Front into line!"

It was business of mine

While the infantry volleyed the rout—rout, rout!

While I cleared out the village in rout!

But those years have sped; long silent are my lips;

Now my sturdy grandson rules the host I knew,

And a drab-clad army trusts his five-shell clips

As of old the blue-clad held my one shot true.

Still, my dotage takes solace of glory

From my turbulent youth and its scenes.

As vivid with valorous story

As the isles of the far Philippines.

Though the steel-jacket smokeless is sovereign

And I'm proud of my name on his crest,

It was black smoke and lead

When the skirmish lines spread

With the Springfield that conquered the West—West,

West!

With the hard-fighting arm of the West!

[Original]

A GARRISON CHRISTMAS

NOW, all you homesick rookies who are blue on Christmas Day,

Though bunked in pleasant barracks, come listen to my lay!

When you're stationed snug at Flagler, Leavenworth, or Hampton Roads,

Where the postman three times daily brings your Christmas cheer in loads,

What ground have you for kicking? You would glorify your fate

If you'd been in old Fort Buford on Christmas, '68!

Just a bunch of squatty cabins built of cottonwoods and clay

With roofs of sod and sedge-grass and windows stuffed with hay,

And when the winter blizzards came howling overhead

And we couldn't reach the timber, we burned our bunks, instead,

While, camped around the gullies, lay five hundred Sioux in wait;

That's how we stood at Buford on Christmas, '68!

We were out beyond the border a thousand miles or more,

A wilderness of drifting snows behind us and before;

Just a bunch of U. S. doughboys, hollow-eyed from march and fight,

For you bet we all kept busy with Sitting Bull in sight,

And our old buzz-saw he'd captured never let us sleep too late

When he used it as a war-drum around Christmas, '68!

I remember well that morning, it was twenty-four below,

With a bright sun striking crystals from the endless fields of snow.

We had finished with our breakfast of beans and bacon-fat,

When someone cried, "Look yonder, along the bluffs! What's that?"

We looked, then cheered like demons. The mail-guard, sure as fate!

A welcome sight, I tell you, on Christmas, '68!

They ploughed in through the snow-drifts across the barrack-yard,

Their fur caps rimmed with hoar-frost, their horses breathing hard.

They bore orders from headquarters, but we soldiers bade them hail

Because they'd brought us, also, our sacks of Christmas mail.

We had never hoped till springtime to have that precious freight;

Was it strange it raised our spirits on Christmas, '68?

We crowded in a corner around old Sergeant "Jack"—

A Santa Claus in chevrons with a mail-bag for his pack—

And with horse-play, yells, and laughter we greeted every flight

As he called the names and fired them their bundles left and right.

For some there came no tokens, but they kept their faces straight

And smiled at others' fortune on Christmas, '68.

"Tom Flint!" A woollen muffler from his sister back in Maine.

"James Bruce!" His father'd sent him a silver watch and chain.

"Hans Goetz!" A flute and song-book from the far-off Baltic's shore.

"George Kent!" A velvet album from his folks in Baltimore.

And how we cheered the pictures from the girls in every State

To their sweethearts in the army, on Christmas, '68!

"Fred Gray!" A sudden silence fell on that noisy place.

Poor Fred lay in the foot-hills with the snow above his face.

But his bunkie loosed the package of its wrappings, one by one—

'Twas a Bible from his mother, with a blessing for her son.

And the hardest heart was softened as we thought of our deadmate

And that lonely, stricken mother on Christmas, '68.

But the Sergeant raised the shadow as he shouted, "Jerry Clegg!"

In hospital was Jerry with a bullet through his leg—

The gayest lad in Buford—-and we plunged out through the drifts

To take his package to him, forgetting our own gifts.

'Twas a green silk vest from Dublin, and, bedad, it sure was great

To hear old Jerry chuckle on Christmas, '68!

Thus it went, with joke and banter—what a romping time we had!

The redskins in the coulées must have thought we'd gone clean mad,

For they started popping bullets at the sentinels on guard

And we had to stop our nonsense, and sortie good and hard.

But that was daily routine—always got it, soon or late—

If we hadn't, we'd felt lonely on Christmas, '68.

So I'm here to tell you rookies who are kicking on your lot

That you don't know service hardship as we got it, served up hot,

For the Philippines are easy and Hawaii is a snap

When compared to fighting Injins over all the Western map,

And, next time you start to growling when your mail's an hour late,

Just recall the boys at Buford, on Christmas, '68!

[Original]

[Original]

TROOP HORSES

OH, you hear a lot these days

Of the automatic ways

That the experts have devised for spillin' gore;

Cycle squadrons, motor vans,

All fixed up on modern plans

For a rapid transit, quick installment war.

Now, that sort of thing may go

When you have a thoughtful foe

Who will stick to graded roads with all his forces,

But when we were boys in blue,

Playing cross-tag with the Sioux,

We were satisfied to get along on horses.

Oh, the horses, sleek and stout

When the squadrons started out,

How they pranced along the column as the bugles blew the "Trot!"

They might weaken and go lame,

But they'd never quit the game,

And they'd bring us back in safety if they weren't left to rot.

When there came a sudden tack

In the travois' dusty track

And we knew the reds were headin' for the timber and the rocks,

With the infantry and trains

Thirty miles back on the plains,

Then the horses were the boys that got the knocks.

Oh, the horses, roan and bay,

Without either corn or hay,

But a little mess o' dirty oats that wouldn't feed a colt;

Who could blame 'em if they'd bite

Through the picket-ropes at night?

When a man or horse is hungry, ain't he bound to try and bolt?

When the trail got light and thin

And the ridges walled us in,

And the flankers had to scramble with their toes and finger-nails,

While the wind across the peaks

Whipped the snow against our cheeks,

Then the horses had to suffer for the badness of the trails.

Oh, the horses, lean and lank,

With the "U. S." on their flank

And a hundred-weight of trumpery a-dangle all around;

How they sweated, side by side.

When the stones began to slide

And they couldn't find a footing or an inch of solid ground.

But they'd stand the racket right

Till the redskins turned to fight

And up among the fallen pines we heard their rifles crack;

Hi!—the three-year vet'rans stormed

While the skirmish lines were formed

At the snub-nosed little carbines that they couldn't fire back!

And the horses, standing there

With their noses in the air—

How they kicked and raised the devil down among the tangled trees!

They didn't mind the shooting,

But they'd try to go a-scooting

When they got a whiff of redskin on the chilly mountain breeze.

Still, I've not a word of blame

For those horses, just the same;

A yelping Injun, daubed with clay, he isn't nice to see.

And I ain't forgot the day

When my long-legg'd Texas bay

Wasn't scared enough of Injuns not to save my life for me.

I was lyin' snug and low

In a hollow full of snow

When the hostiles flanked the squadron from a wooded ridge near by,

And, of course, the boys, at that,

Sought a cooler place to chat,

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

But the redskins understood—

Bet your life they always would!—

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

While I wondered how I'd be

"Soldier a la fricassee,"

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

Till I heard a crunchin' sound,

And when I looked around,

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

He was shiverin' with fright,

But he hadn't moved a mite,

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

And he stayed, that Texan did,

Till I'd crawled and rolled and slid

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

And I somehow reached the saddle

And hung on—I couldn't straddle—

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

Oh, the horses from the range,

They've got hearts; it isn't strange

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

But I'd like to see a chart

Of the automobile cart

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

Now, the boys in blue, you bet,

Earn whatever praise they get,

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

For the good old Yankee horses,

They are always with the forces

When the battle-smoke is curling round the flag!

And I don't believe the men

Who make drawings with a pen

Can ever build a thing of cranks and wheels

That will starve and work and fight,

Summer, winter, day or night.

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

[Original]

A KHAKI KICK

BACK there in Washington, people may stare,

Easy-chair officers sputter and swear,

Bureaucrats legislate—what do we care?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who started with the rifle and finished with the talk;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, hang these army politics, when jealousy and spite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back there in Washington, people may stare,

Easy-chair officers sputter and swear,

Bureaucrats legislate—what do we care?

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

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

[Original]

SERGEANT NOONAN EXPLAINS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We yanked our horses sideways and fired by the flank,

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

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

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

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

They started breakin' column and first we veterans knew,

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

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

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

Then a bullet caught my mustang and ploughed him underneath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With their horses at the gallop and revolvers poppin' gay

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

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

That day the Cheyennes jumped us among the Blacksnake Hills,

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

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

LARAMIE TRAIL

ACROSS the crests of the naked hills,

Smooth-swept by the winds of God,

It cleaves its way like a shaft of gray,

Close-bound by the prairie sod.

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

The clean trail, the lean trail,

The trail the troopers made.

It draws aside with a wary curve

From the lurking, dark ravine,

It launches fair as a lance in air

O'er the raw-ribbed ridge between:

With never a wait it plunges straight

Through river or reed-grown brook;

The deep trail, the steep trail,

The trail the squadrons took.

They carved it well, those men of old,

Stern lords of the border war,

They wrought it out with their sabres stout

And marked it with their gore.

They made it stand as an iron band

Along the wild frontier;

The strong trail, the long trial,

The trail of force and fear.

For the stirring note of the bugle's throat

Ye may hark to-day in vain,

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

And gulfed in the growing grain.

But wait to-night for the moonrise white;

Perchance ye may see them tread

The lost trail, the ghost trail,

The trail of the gallant dead.

[Original]

'Twixt cloud and cloud o'er the pallid moon

From the nether dark they glide

And the grasses sigh as they rustle by

Their phantom steeds astride.

By four and four as they rode of yore

And well they know the way;

The dim trail, the grim trail,

The trail of toil and fray.

With tattered guidons spectral thin

Above their swaying ranks,

With carbines swung and sabres slung

And the gray dust on their flanks.

They march again as they marched it then

When the red men dogged their track,

The gloom trail, the doom trail,

The trail they came not back.

They pass, like a flutter of drifting fog,

As the hostile tribes have passed,

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

And the unfenced prairies vast,

And those who gain by their strife and pain

Forget, in the land they won,

The red trail, the dead trail,

The trail of duty done.

But to him who loves heroic deeds

The far-flung path still bides,

The bullet sings and the war-whoop rings

And the stalwart trooper rides.

For they were the sort from Snelling Fort

Who traveled fearlessly

The bold trail, the old trail,

The trail to Laramie.

II. PRAIRIE SONGS

THE CALL OF THE WIND

THE wind comes rollicking out of the West

(Oh, wind of the West, so free!)

With the scent of the plains on its heaving breast.

(Oh, plains that I no more see!)

It cries through the smoky and roaring town

Of the tossing grass and the hillsides brown

Where the cattle graze as the sun goes down.

(Oh, sun on the prairie sea!)

And this is the song that the West wind sings;

(Oh, call of the wind, have done!)

That the worth of life is the joy it brings.

(Oh, joy that is never won!)

That the stainless sky and the virgin sod

Hold richer wealth, of the peace of God,

Than the streets where the weary toilers plod.

(Oh, streets that the heart would shun!)

But, wind of the West, in vain thy voice,

(Oh, why must the voice be vain?)

If joy were all, 'twere an easy choice.

(Oh, choice that is fraught with pain!)

The road of life is a hard, hard way

But yet, if we hold to the path, it may

Lead back to the land of dreams some day.

(Yes, back to the plains again!)

[Original]

THE FUR TRADERS

THE moon, on plain and bluff and stream,

Casts but a faint and fitful gleam,

For, striving in a ghostly race,

The clouds that rack across her face

Now leave her drifting, white and high,

In some clear lake of purple sky

And then, like waves with crests upcurled,

Obscure her radiance from the world.

Across the wild Missouri's breast

Which lies in icy armor dressed,

The north wind howls and moans.

Wrenching the naked trees that stand

Like skeletons along the strand,

To shrill and creaking groans.

On distant butte and wide coteau

Is snow and never-ending snow:

Whirling aloft in spiral clouds,

Weaving in misty, crystal shrouds,

Then floating back to earth again

To drift across the frozen plain

In strangely sculptured trough and crest,

Like some slow ocean's heaving breast.

Such night is not for mortal kind

To fare abroad; the bitter wind,

The restless snows, the frost-locked mold

Bid living creatures seek their hold

And leave to Winter's monarch will

The solitudes of vale and hill.

The buffalo, whose legions vast

A few short moons ago have passed

Adown these bleak hillsides,

Now graze full many a league away

Where, through the genial southern day

The winds of Matagorda Bay

Caress their shaggy hides.

The wolves have sought their coverts deep

In dark ravine and coulée steep,

Where cedar thickets, dense and warm,

Afford protection from the storm,

And every creature of the plains

Has left his well-beloved domains

To seek, or near or far,

A haven where warm-blooded life

May cower from the dreadful strife

Of hyperborean war.

But see, across yon barren swell

Where wind and snow-rime weave a spell

Of phantoms o'er the hill,

What awkward creatures of the night

Come creeping, snail-like, on the sight,

Halting and slow, in weary plight

But ever onward still?

Their limbs are long and lank and thin,

Their forms are swathed from foot to chin

In garments rude of bison skin.

Upon each broad and stalwart back

Is strapped a huge and weighty pack,

Their coarse and ragged hair

Streams back from brows whose dusky stain

Is dyed by blizzard, wind, and rain,

They are a fearsome pair;

Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast.

They seem like cursed souls, outcast

To roam forever there.

Yet hark! Adown the cold wind flung,

What voice of merriment gives tongue?

'Tis human laughter, deep and strong,

And now, all suddenly, a song

Rings o'er the prairie lone!

A chanson old, whose rhythm oft

Has lingered on the breezes soft

That kiss the storied Rhone,

Or floated up from lips of love

To some dark casement, high above

The streets of Avignon,

Where lovely eyes, all maidenly,

Glance shyly forth, that they may see

What lover comes to serenade

Ere drawing back the latticed shade

To toss a red rose down.

What fickle fate, what strange mischance

Has brought this song of sunny France

To ride upon the blizzard crest

That mantles o'er the wild Northwest?

To find its echoes sweet

In barren butte and stark cliff-side,

Whose beetling summits override

The fierce Missouri's murky tide;

To rouse the scurrying feet

Of antelope and lean coyote;

To hear its last, long, witching note,

Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat,

Sweep by on pinions fleet.

Full far these errant sons of Gaul

Have journeyed from the gray sea-wall

That fronts on fair Marseilles,

But still the spirit of their race

Bids them to turn a dauntless face

On whate'er Fates prevail.

The storm may drive to bush and den

The creatures of the field and fen,

But neither storm nor darksome night

Nor ice-bound stream nor frowning height

Can check or turn or put to flight

These iron-hearted men.

Across the flats of stinging sands,

Through thickets, woods, and sere uplands,

Their weary pathway shows;

Toward some far fort of logs and stakes

Deep hidden in the willow brakes,

Right onward still it goes

Persistently, an unblazed track,

Bent from the cheerless bivouac

Of some poor, prairie Indian band

Whose chill and flimsy tepees stand

Half buried in the snows.

Yet what of costly merchandise

That wealth may covet, commerce prize,

Can these adventurers wring

From that ill-fed, barbarian horde

As seems to them a meet reward

For all the risk and toil and pain

They've suffered on the winter plain

Amid their journeying?

Ah, wealth enough is garnered there,

Though not of gold or jewels rare,

To rouse the white man's longing greed

And send his servants forth with speed

To lay the treasure bare.

The trinkets cheap these traders brought

The savages have dearly bought,

Persuaded guilelessly to pay

A ten times doubled usury

In furs of beavers and of minks,

Of silver fox and spotted lynx.

For all their rich and varied store

Of peltries, gathered from the shore,

The wood, the prairie, and the hill

By trapper's art and hunter's skill,

The traders' heavy packs now fill.

A journey far those furs must go

From these wild fastnesses of snow,

By travois, pack, and deep bateau;

By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman

Till half a hemisphere they span,

Ere they will lie, at last, displayed

By boulevard and esplanade

In Europe's buzzing marts of trade.

These marten skins, so soft and warm,

May wrap some Russian princess' form

And shield her from the Arctic storm

That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay;

That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed,

May cloak some warrior monarch's breast

As, gazing o'er the battle crest,

He sees the foemen's legions pressed

In panic, from the fray.

But it is not the destinies

Which may, perchance, beyond the seas,

Await these rare commodities,

That chiefly signify,

Though king and knight and princess fair

Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare

Their pride to gratify.

But this; that in the storm to-night.