036m
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!
040m
041m
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.
045m
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!
048m
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.
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 PlatteTo 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.
051m
'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.
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!)
058m
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.
Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight,
Two men still press along.
Not hiding, as the wolf and hind,
From blinding snow and bitter wind
Nor, like the Indian, crouching low
Above a brush-fire's feeble glow
But, vigorous and strong,
Hasting their bidden task to close
Whate'er obstructions interpose
And parrying Fortune's adverse blows
Right gaily, with a song.
Plains of the mighty, virgin West,
Plains in cold, sterile beauty dressed,
Your time of fruit draws near!
Creatures of thicket, vale and shore,
Tribes of the hills, your reign is o'er,
The conquerer is here!
His footprints mark your secret grounds,
His voice upon your air resounds,
His name, unto your utmost bounds,
Is one of strength and fear.
The magic of his virile powers
Shall change your desert wastes to bowers,
Your nakedness to shade;
Shall stretch broad, rustling ranks of corn
Along your stony crests forlorn
And wheat-fields, dappling in the sun,
Where your mad autumn fires have run.
The trails your bison made
Shall grow beneath his hurrying feet
To highway broad and village street,
Along whose grassy sides shall sleep
Meadows and orchards, fruited deep;
Homesteads and schools and holy fanes
To prove that all these fertile plains
Are turned by God's eternal plan
To serve the onward march of man,
Which sweeping down the vale of time
With gathering strength and hope sublime
Is never checked nor stayed.