BOOT HILL
In the old days of the Frontier, the cemetery in every town and mining camp was called “Boot Hill,” because many of its inmates died, literally, “With their boots on.” Today these graveyards, with their sunken, half-obliterated graves, are all that is left of many a once-thriving camp. Their nameless dead are the drift that mark forgotten channels where once the tide of human life flowed full and strong.
Go softly, you whose careless feetWould crush the sage brush, pungent, sweet,And brush the rabbit weed asideFrom burrows where the ground squirrels hide,And prairie dog his watch-tower keepsAmong the ragged gravel heaps.Year long the wind blows up and downEach lessening mound, and drifts the brown,Dried wander-weed there at their feet—Who no more wander, slow or fleet.Sun-bleached, rain-warped, the head boards holdOne story, all too quickly told:That here some wild heart takes its restFrom spent desire and fruitless quest.Here in the greasewood’s scanty shadeHow many a daring soul was laid!Boots on, full-garbed as when he died;The pistol belted at his side;The worn sombrero on his breast—To prove another man the best.Arrow or knife, or quick-drawn gun—The glad, mad, fearless game was done,A life for stakes—play slow or fast—Win—lose—yet Death was trumps at last.Some went where bar-room tinsel flared,Or painted dance-hall wantons stared;Some, where the lone, brown ranges baredTheir parched length to a parching sky,And God alone might hear the cryFrom thirst-dried lips that, stiff and cold,Seemed still to babble: “Gold, gold, gold!”Woman, or wine, or greed, or Chance;—A comrade’s shot; an Indian lance;By camp or cañon, trail or street—Here all games end; here all trails meet.The ground squirrels chatter in the sun;The dry, gray sage leaves, one by one,Drift down, close-curled, in odorous heaps;Above, wide-winged, a wild hawk sweeps;And on the worn board at the headOf one whose name was fear and dread,A little, solemn ground owl sits.Ah, here the Man and Life are quits!Go softly, nor with careless feet—Here all games end; here all trails meet.