WE are up in the morning ere dawning of day
And the grub-wagon's busy and flap-jacks in play,
While the herd is astir over hillside and swale
With the night-riders rounding them into the trail.
Come, take up your cinches
And shake up your reins;
Come, wake up your bronco
And break for the plains;
Come, roust those red steers from the long chaparral,
For the outfit is off for the railroad corral!
The sun circles upward, the steers as they plod
Are pounding to powder the hot prairie sod,
And it seems, as the dust turns you dizzy and sick
That you'll never reach noon and the cool, shady creek.
But tie up your kerchief
And ply up your nag;
Come, dry up your grumbles
And try not to lag;
Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral,
For we're far on the way to the railroad corral!
The afternoon shadows are starting to lean
When the grub-wagon sticks in a marshy ravine
And the herd scatters further than vision can look,
For you bet all true punchers will help out the cook!
So shake out your rawhide
And snake it up fair;
Come, break in your bronco
To taking his share!
Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral,
For it's all in the drive to the railroad corral!
065m
But the longest of days must reach evening at last,
When the hills are all climbed and the creeks are all passed,
And the tired herd droops in the yellowing light;
Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's in sight!
Come, strap up the saddle
Whose lap you have felt;
So flap up your holster
And snap up your belt;
Good-bye to the steers and the long chaparral;
There's a town that's a trump by the railroad corral!
MET a chap the other night, down on Halsted Street,
Holdin' up Mike Kelley's bar, sippin' mint an' rye;
I'd just hit the Stock Yards with a cattle-train o' meat,
Loped around to Kelly's place, singein' hot an' dry.
This here chap was somethin' rare; Henglish tweeds an' gloves,
Stripey collar round his neck, sparks to throw away,
He was givin' 'em a song, 'bout the town he loves,
How they hit "the pace that kills," down on old Broadway.
Heaved a wistful, weepy sigh 'twould make a bay steer groan
When he told us what a spangled, rompin' time he'd had
Christmas Eve a year ago, just before he'd blown
Out into the "Woolly," where we don't know shrimps from shad.
Claimed along 'bout three a. m. they found an apple girl
Sleepin' in a doorway; stole her fruit to raise a fuss,
Then they made her do a Midway Turkish dancin' whirl
'Fore they'd pay the damage—an' he called that generous!
Awful homesick yarn it was. 'Peared he couldn't find
Nothin' in the whoopin' line warm enough out West.
Made me sort o' weary, so, to ease my mind,
I dug up a Christmas tale an' let him take a rest.
Mind the Northwest homestead boom, twenty-odd years back,
When Dakota stuck her nose above the waves o' fame?
I was pottin' coyotes from a Brule County shack,
Burnin' hay an' eatin' pork an' holdin' down my claim.
Not a strictly stirrin' life; quite a lot less gay
Than workin' in a grave-yard, a-plantin' of remains.
Notion hit me Christmas time to take a holiday;
Roped the cayuse, strapped my guns, an' struck across the plains.
Galloped into Kimball 'long 'bout milkin' time,
Wind a-whoopin' from the North, cold as billy hell—
Ever known a prairie town in its infant prime?
Kimball was a corker an' I've seen some pretty swell.
Just a bunch o' dry goods boxes dumped along a rise,
Cracks plugged up with pitch an' tar, stove-pipes stickin' through,
But, you bet, that little burg was sure enough the prize
Fer stirrin' up a tinted time an' startin' it to brew.
Thought I'd have a quiet night; Lord, it wa'n't no use!
First bumped into Billy Stokes, up from Bijou Hills,
We wandered into "Rancher's Rest," spang onto "Shorthorn" Bruce,
Charlie Gates an' "Doc" Lemar, curin' of their chills.
Well, that closed the "quiet" act; things was due to burn.
Dabbled with the red-eye till the lamp-lights ringed an' soared.
Then Lemar got wealthy an' thought he'd take a turn
Spinnin' out his sinkers on the racy roulette board.
Oh, the time was lovely (fer the man behind the wheel!)
Stokes an' "Shorthorn" joined the game, just to try their luck,
Charlie, landin' on the bar, started off a reel;
Then the banker "rolled the roll"—an' the blame thing stuck!
"Fixed!" yells Bill an' "Shorthorn," whippin' out their pipes;
Banker backed ag'in the wall, huntin' fer a crack,
Air just pink with cuss-words, runnin' round in stripes,
Doors an' winders full o' folks, none a-comin' back.
"Doc" was just a-prancin' round, gettin' things in range,
So's to shoot the whole joint up without no undue pause,
When we heerd a little voice, thin an' mighty strange,
Pipin' up from somewheres, "Mister, is you Santa Claus?"
Well, I swan, if that there shack had gathered up an' r'ared
An' galloped off across the street, we'd not been more knocked out
Than when we seen that little girl, blue-eyed an' curly-haired,
A-standin' in the bar-room, half-way 'twixt a smile an' pout.
Say, we ducked them guns o' ours underneath our hats
'S if the Sheriff's deputies had just come jumpin' in.
We sure was worse kerflummuxed than a lot o' sneakin' rats,
Caught a-stealin' barley in some feller's stable-bin.
That there little lady stood an' looked around a spell,
Then she toddled to Lemar an' looked up in his eyes:
"Oo's the big, long-whiskered man I'se heard my Mama tell,
'At brings nice fings to everyone what's good an' never cries.
"Mama's good; I'se tried to be"—her eyes began to fill—
"But she says 'at Santa Claus can't come this Christmas Day.
I don't see why; since Papa's in that still place on the hill
She never gets no p'itty clo'es, nor me nice toys for play.
"She told me, though, 'at Santa Claus was here in town to-night
An' so I fought I'd dess slip out an' find him if I could
An' see if he's dot sump'n left—I fought, perhaps, he might—
An', mister, if you's Santy, tan we have it, if we's good?"
I've seen "Doc" get ditched an' wrecked with forty cars o' steers
An' take it like a mallard duck, paradin' in the rain;
Never thought he'd learned to know there was such things as tears,
Which shows it's hard to figger how a feller works his brain.
He turned round an' raked his stakes from off that roulette board,
An' the whiskey wasn't guilty for his huskiness o' voice:
"Boys," says he, "I pass this deal right here an', by the Lord,
I blow my wad on somethin' else—you all kin take yer choice.
"It's well enough to whoop things up an' get a gorgeous head
But mighty wise to recolleck yer coin's just gone to grass.
I'm a-goin' to take a whirl at Santy Claus, instead,
Wish that toys was in my line, but maybe these'll pass."
Every cent he skirmished, from his hat-band to his pants,
Went into the apron that the little one held out;
Rest of us, we follered suit, scrappin' fer the chance,
Then we took her to the door an' finished with a shout.
But, before we let her go—shameful sort o' trick!—
Made her kiss us all good-night; "Doc" took his right slow.
I just sucked my breath all in an' hustled through it quick;
Still, she didn't seem to mind; guess she didn't know.—
"Now," says I, "my homesick friend" (to him on Halsted Street),
"You're a painful sort o' sight, crackin' up Broadway.
Kimball, Brule County, was an ace-high flush to beat
An' I'd backed her to the limit fer a winner in the play.
"But the beauty-spot on Kimball an' the boys that made her hum
Was the fact that rye an' roulette didn't petrify their souls;
Simply tip 'em to the theory that yer luck was on the bum
An' they'd cut the game instanter an' deliver up their rolls.
"An' if I'd a wife an' children an' was billed fer Canaan's Strand
I'd take a sight more pleasure in a-turnin' up my toes
If I left 'em to the mercies o' that old Dakota land
Than in your plug-hat city where the money-grubber grows."
072m
RAWHIDE" Smith's gone crazy.
"Rawhide" was my pard.
Used to be a daisy;
Say, it's mighty hard!
Down at Twin Buttes City
"Rawhide" met a maid,
Young an' slim an' prettyAn' she turned his haid.
We jest started dancin'
Frolicsome an' gay—
Hang the pay-day prancin'
When it ends that way!
Say! that little creature
Got him roped all right;
First I knew, a preacher
Had spliced 'em good an' tight.
Now he's gone to farmin'
Way off from the range.
Says his place is charmin';
Lord, he's gettin' strange!
No more pal to cheer me
Ridin' herd at night;
No more comrade near me,
Game fer fun or fight.
One coat did fer cover
Cold nights when it stormed,
But them nights is over;
"Rawhide" Smith's reformed!
DOWN in Sonora's wide, white lands,
Lost in the endless waste of sands,
Lies, like a blot of gray and brown,
Nacozari, a desert town.
All day long through its narrow street
Children play in the dust and heat,
Naked of limb and dark of face,
Lithe as fawns in their careless grace,
Chattering shrill in a half-caste speech
Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach.
All day long by the doorways small
Cut through the thick adobe wall,
Or in the narrow belts of shade
Here and there by the flat roofs made,
Lounge the indolent, swarthy men,
Moving sluggishly now and then
Better to scan their dicing throws
Under their low-tipped sombreros.
But, for the most, content to lie
Drowsing the listless hours by,
Watching, each, as the thin, blue jet
Curls from his drooping cigarette.
All day long, from the dawn's first flush
When the mass is said in the morning hush
Till fall of eve, when the vesper's peal
Calls the faithful again to kneel,
Nothing rouses the quiet place,
Lulled in the desert's hushed embrace,
Save when out of the distance dim,
Over the far horizon's rim,
Sudden a purring whisper comes,
Rising swift, like the throb of drums,
And the iron track which stretches forth,
Straight as a lance from south to north,
Quivers and sings in the mighty strain
From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train
Then, for a space, as the whistle screams,
Nacozari awakes from dreams.
Women and children, boys and men
Stream to the station platform then,
Eager to gaze from its long plank walk,
With gesturing arms and rapid talk,
At the huge machine like a comet hurled
From the mystical zone of the outer world.
Thus it was on one summer's day,
While the land in its noontide slumber lay
With never a living creature near
Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear
Basking himself in the fervid heat,
Or, high aloft, like a pirate fleet,
A flock of vultures on lazy wing
Circling wide in a watchful ring,
That into the street of the desert town
A long, slow freight came rolling down,
Laden with goods of Northern yield
For Mexican mine and town and field.
Rumbling in with failing speed
It came to rest like a. tired steed,
With the mogul engine's dusty flank
Close by the massive water-tank,
As if it longed, like a living thing,
To quench its thirst at the cooling spring
Of the thousand-foot artesian well,
Sunk through the desert's crusted shell.
Just as it stopped with a grinding jar
Rattling back from car to car,
Out of the engine-cab swung clear
Jesus Garcia, the engineer,
Sooted and grimed to his finger-tips
But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips,
For he was handsome and young and strong
And love was the theme of his murmured song.
Slowly he passed his engine by
Scanning its length with a practiced eye,
Touching a polished slide-valve here.
Or there, a shaft of the running-gear,
Which done, he turned in a boyish mood
To a group of children who, gaping, stood
At the side of the track, too wonder-bound
To move a limb or to make a sound.
Into their midst Garcia sprung
And a chubby lad to his shoulder swung,
Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck
Like a sailor tossed on a rocking deck.
Perhaps to the Mexican engineer
The child suggested a vision dear
Of a little boy of his very own
In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,
And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day,
Told beads for her husband, far away,
And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back,
For his mogul engine along the track.
But only a moment, with swinging feet,
The baby perched on his lofty seat,
For suddenly down by the cars in rear
There rang a shriek of unbridled fear.
Garcia turned, in amaze looked back;
A score of men from the railroad track
Were rushing away in a frantic race
As if they had looked on a demon's face,
And then, as he turned, the cause was plain
For half-way back in the standing train
A flame licked out from a box-car's side,
Yellow and spiteful, a handbreadth wide.
His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled
As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child,
Nor even forgot in his haste to place
A good-bye kiss on the upturned face;
Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed
Intent, at the spot where the fire blazed.
Barely a glance was enough to tell
It was a car which he knew full well—
Shipped in bond by a fast freight line,
Bound for a great Sonora mine—
Filled to the roof and loaded tight
With closed-tiered boxes of dynamite;
Enough, if its deadly strength found vent,
To rock the land like a billowed tent,
Sweeping the town from the desert sand
Clean as the palm of an opened hand.
What did he do, the engineer,
Face to face with this mortal fear?
Turn, as the rest, to the desert wide,
Mad with dread, for a place to hide,
Leaving the town and its helpless folk
Doomed to death at a single stroke?
No! Though only a peon born
Heart like his might a king adorn!
Waving his arms to his frightened crew,
Such as remained, a scattered few,
Garcia uttered a warning shout—
"Undile! Vamos!" ("Run! Get out!")
Leaped to his engine waiting there,
Opened the throttle, released the air,
And started the jets for the sand to run
On the glassy rails where the drivers spun,
Till, biting the steel with a spurt of fire
Sputtering back from each grinding tire,
The monster conquered its straining load
And, gathering speed on the curveless road,
It rolled from the town and left it whole.
Like death torn loose from a stricken soul.
But looking backward with stern-set face,
Throttle gripped in a firm embrace,
Garcia goaded his panting steed
Ever and ever to faster speed.
Knowing still if the blow should fall
It would shatter the village wall from wall.
Now from the sides of the car behind,
Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind,
Burst the flames in a lashing sheet
Peeling the paint with its fervid heat,
Vomiting sparks like a fiery hail
On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail.
Still the mogul, in giant flight,
Swaying drunkenly left and right,
Strained to the race, while the rails it trod
Thundered behind it, rod by rod;
Still in its cab, foredoomed, alone.
Waiting death like a man of stone,
Stood Garcia, his feet braced wide
To the pitch and plunge of the engine's stride,
With never a frown to show he knew
Regret for the task he was there to do.
Hardly a mile had his wild train fled
Into the desert straight ahead,
When a flare of light to his vision came
As if the world were engulfed in flame.
Perhaps it fell on his closing eyes
Like the great, white light of Paradise;
Perhaps, in the roar which smote him there,
Too deep for a mortal ear to bear,
He heard but the Heavenly trumpet-roll
Blown clear to welcome a hero's soul.
At least, if any have won to rest
In the fair, green land of the ever blest
By earning their right therein to dwell,
Jesus Garcia deserved it well,
For in the blast that strewed his train,
Torn in fragments, along the plain.
Only his soul went forth to meet
The final call at his Master's feet.
So it is that to-day, alone,
In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,
A brown-skinned woman with sad, dark eyes
Looks on her child at his play, and sighs,
Knowing well she will hark in vain
For her husband's step at the door again.
Or watch, as the trains steam back and forth,
For his mogul engine out of the North.
So it is that when evening falls,
Draping the dull adobe walls
Fold on fold in its tender mist,
Purple and blue and amethyst,
And Nacozari kneels down to pray
At the vesper call from the chapel gray,
Many an orison of love
Is wafted up to the stars above
For the peace of Jesus Garcia's soul;
He who had saved the village whole
By the utmost gift which a man can give—
Life, that his fellow men might live.
Dear miss:
For this pink stationery
Forgive me; it's all I could find
In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry,
So I took it—I hope you won't mind.
For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending,
Though in words not the best ever slung,
To you, where the Tiber is wending.
From me, on the banks of the Tongue.
Perhaps you've forgotten the morning
When your car of the Overland Mail
Broke loose on a curve, without warning,
And was ditched by the spread of a rail?
I was herding near by in the valley,
And I pulled out your father and you,
And I found that your name, Miss, was Sallie,
And—well, I remember. Do you?
You were there for five hours at least, Miss,
Then the whistle, a smile, a last word,
And you rolled away to the East, Miss,
While I galloped back to the herd.
You back to your world and its beauties.
New York, Paris, Rome, and all those,
I, back to a cowboy's rough duties
In sunshine and rainstorm and snows.
But to-night I'm alone in the shack here
On my quarter-square Government claim,
While coyotes are yelping out back here—
You'd be scared, Miss, I guess, by the same.
The moonlight is white on the river,
And the long, frozen miles of the plain
Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver
And wish it was summer again.
It's different where you are, I reckon,
Leastways from the books it must be,
Where the green hills of Italy beckon
And the Tiber sings down to the sea;
Where the red roses always are climbing
And the air smells of olives and pines,
And at evening the vesper bells' chiming
Floats up toward the far Apennines.
You like it, no doubt, and you'd never
See beauties that nature can hold
Where the snow lies in drifts on the river
And the prairies are empty and cold.
But somehow I wouldn't forego it
For all of those soft, southern lands.
I breathe it and feel it and know it;
It grips me as if it had hands.
The stars in the night, how they glisten!
The plains in the day, how they spread!
There's room to stand up in, and listen,
And know there's a God overhead.
And then, when the summer is coming
And the cattle start out on the trails,
And you hearken at dawn to the drumming
Of prairie-hens down in the swales.
Why, Italy simply ain't in it!—
But, Miss, here I'm talking too free.
Excuse me; my thoughts for a minute
Got sort of the better of me.
It was just about Christmas I started;
To me, it was only a name
Till that day when we met, talked and parted,
But since it has not been the same.
For you gave me a new kind of notion
Of the countries and people and such
On the trails that lie over the ocean—
I guess we don't differ so much.
And Christmas is chuck full of spirit
That everywhere under the sun
Warms up anyone who comes near it
And fills them with good-will and fun.
So I want you to know from this letter
That the time by the train wreck with you
Made me know all humanity better
And like the whole bunch better, too.
And I hope, if it seems like presuming
That a letter shall come to your door
In the land where the roses are blooming
From me, on the Tongue's icy shore,
You'll forgive, Miss, an uncultured party
In the spirit of Christmas, and take
These thanks and good wishes, all hearty,
From
Your most sincere