Ballads of a Cheechako by Robert W. Service

This work is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.

The author died in 1958, so this work is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in countries and areas (such as the internet) where longer copyright terms might be in effect but that apply the rule of the shorter term to FOREIGN WORKS.

This poem (and all other works of Robert William Service) is PUBLIC DOMAIN

 not subject to any copyright my blogs and postings do NOT infringe upon anyone else's rights
and should NOT be linked to any other site.

As the most commercially successful poet in history; Robert W. Service wrote many ballads.
Because his first trip to the Yukon (1893) occurred seven years after the gold rush began, the ballads, songs, and poems of Robert W. Service written on the subject were based on stories that he had only heard; and NOT from personal experience; but by that time he was already a somewhat successful poet.

"Cheechakeo" means a "green-horn", new-comer, "tender-foot" which, as a bank clerk and member of the "social set", is what Robert Service truly was; hence his poem No Sourdough

A "Sour-dough" was an experienced "Klondiker".

FROM THE KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH

 CANADA

The Man from Eldorado

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,

In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.

He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;

He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.

He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;

Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;

He slops along the sidewalk followed by his yellow dog,

But he's got a bunch of gold-dust in his sack.

He seems a little wistful as he blinks at all the lights,

And maybe he is thinking of his claim

And the dark and dwarfish cabin where he lay and dreamed at nights,

(Thank God, he'll never see the place again!)

Where he lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread,

On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould;

His stomach's out of kilter and his system full of lead,

But it's over, and his poke is full of gold.

He has panted at the windlass, he has loaded in the drift,

He has pounded at the face of oozy clay;

He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift,

He has labored like a demon night and day.

And now, praise God, it's over, and he seems to breathe again

Of new-mown hay, the warm, wet, friendly loam;

He sees a snowy orchard in a green and dimpling plain,

And a little vine-clad cottage, and it's -- Home.

II.



He's the man from Eldorado, and he's had a bite and sup,

And he's met in with a drouthy friend or two;

He's cached away his gold-dust, but he's sort of bucking up,

So he's kept enough to-night to see him through.

His eye is bright and genial, his tongue no longer lags;

His heart is brimming o'er with joy and mirth;

He may be far from savory, he may be clad in rags,

But to-night he feels as if he owns the earth.

Says he: "Boys, here is where the shaggy North and I will shake;

I thought I'd never manage to get free.

I kept on making misses; but at last I've got my stake;

There's no more thawing frozen muck for me.

I am going to God's Country, where I'll live the simple life;

I'll buy a bit of land and make a start;

I'll carve a little homestead, and I'll win a little wife,

And raise ten little kids to cheer my heart."

They signified their sympathy by crowding to the bar;

They bellied up three deep and drank his health.

He shed a radiant smile around and smoked a rank cigar;

They wished him honor, happiness and wealth.

They drank unto his wife to be -- that unsuspecting maid;

They drank unto his children half a score;

And when they got through drinking very tenderly they laid

The man from Eldorado on the floor.

III.



He's the man from Eldorado, and he's only starting in

To cultivate a thousand-dollar jag.

His poke is full of gold-dust and his heart is full of sin,

And he's dancing with a girl called Muckluck Mag.

She's as light as any fairy; she's as pretty as a peach;

She's mistress of the witchcraft to beguile;

There's sunshine in her manner, there is music in her speech,

And there's concentrated honey in her smile.

Oh, the fever of the dance-hall and the glitter and the shine,

The beauty, and the jewels, and the whirl,

The madness of the music, the rapture of the wine,

The languorous allurement of a girl!

She is like a lost madonna; he is gaunt, unkempt and grim;

But she fondles him and gazes in his eyes;

Her kisses seek his heavy lips, and soon it seems to him

He has staked a little claim in Paradise.

"Who's for a juicy two-step?" cries the master of the floor;

The music throbs with soft, seductive beat.

There's glitter, gilt and gladness; there are pretty girls galore;

There's a woolly man with moccasins on feet.

They know they've got him going; he is buying wine for all;

They crowd around as buzzards at a feast,

Then when his poke is empty they boost him from the hall,

And spurn him in the gutter like a beast.

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's painting red the town;

Behind he leaves a trail of yellow dust;

In a whirl of senseless riot he is ramping up and down;

There's nothing checks his madness and his lust.

And soon the word is passed around -- it travels like a flame;

They fight to clutch his hand and call him friend,

The chevaliers of lost repute, the dames of sorry fame;

Then comes the grim awakening -- the end.

IV.



He's the man from Eldorado, and he gives a grand affair;

There's feasting, dancing, wine without restraint.

The smooth Beau Brummels of the bar, the faro men, are there;

The tinhorns and purveyors of red paint;

The sleek and painted women, their predacious eyes aglow --

Sure Klondike City never saw the like;

Then Muckluck Mag proposed the toast, "The giver of the show,

The livest sport that ever hit the pike."

The "live one" rises to his feet; he stammers to reply --

And then there comes before his muddled brain

A vision of green vastitudes beneath an April sky,

And clover pastures drenched with silver rain.

He knows that it can never be, that he is down and out;

Life leers at him with foul and fetid breath;

And then amid the revelry, the song and cheer and shout,

He suddenly grows grim and cold as death.

He grips the table tensely, and he says: "Dear friends of mine,

I've let you dip your fingers in my purse;

I've crammed you at my table, and I've drowned you in my wine,

And I've little left to give you but -- my curse.

I've failed supremely in my plans; it's rather late to whine;

My poke is mighty weasened up and small.

I thank you each for coming here; the happiness is mine --

And now, you thieves and harlots, take it all."

He twists the thong from off his poke; he swings it o'er his head;

The nuggets fall around their feet like grain.

They rattle over roof and wall; they scatter, roll and spread;

The dust is like a shower of golden rain.

The guests a moment stand aghast, then grovel on the floor;

They fight, and snarl, and claw, like beasts of prey;

And then, as everybody grabbed and everybody swore,

The man from Eldorado slipped away.

V.



He's the man from Eldorado, and they found him stiff and dead,

Half covered by the freezing ooze and dirt.

A clotted Colt was in his hand, a hole was in his head,

And he wore an old and oily buckskin shirt.

His eyes were fixed and horrible, as one who hails the end;

The frost had set him rigid as a log;

And there, half lying on his breast, his last and only friend,

There crouched and whined a mangy yellow dog.

My FriendsRobert Service

The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;

And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;

A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.

My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray;

The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes like clay;

The skin on my gums was a sullen black, and slowly peeling away.

I was sure enough in a direful fix, and often I wondered why

They did not take the chance that was left and leave me alone to die,

Or finish me off with a dose of dope -- so utterly lost was I.

But no; they brewed me the green-spruce tea, and nursed me there like a child;

And the homicide he was good to me, and bathed my sores and smiled;

And the thief he starved that I might be fed, and his eyes were kind and mild.

Yet they were woefully wicked men, and often at night in pain

I heard the murderer speak of his deed and dream it over again;

I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain.

I'll never forget that bitter dawn, so evil, askew and gray,

When they wrapped me round in the skins of beasts and they bore me to a sleigh,

And we started out with the nearest post an hundred miles away.

I'll never forget the trail they broke, with its tense, unuttered woe;

And the crunch, crunch, crunch as their snowshoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow;

And my breath would fail, and every beat of my heart was like a blow.

And oftentimes I would die the death, yet wake up to life anew;

The sun would be all ablaze on the waste, and the sky a blighting blue,

And the tears would rise in my snow-blind eyes and furrow my cheeks like dew.

And the camps we made when their strength outplayed and the day was pinched and wan;

And oh, the joy of that blessed halt, and how I did dread the dawn;

And how I hated the weary men who rose and dragged me on.

And oh, how I begged to rest, to rest -- the snow was so sweet a shroud;

And oh, how I cried when they urged me on, cried and cursed them aloud;

Yet on they strained, all racked and pained, and sorely their backs were bowed.

And then it was all like a lurid dream, and I prayed for a swift release

From the ruthless ones who would not leave me to die alone in peace;

Till I wakened up and I found myself at the post of the Mounted Police.

And there was my friend the murderer, and there was my friend the thief,

With bracelets of steel around their wrists, and wicked beyond belief:

But when they come to God's judgment seat -- may I be allowed the brief.

---

The Prospector

I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,

A-purpose to revisit the old claim.

I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate,

And the lads who once were with me in the game.

Poor boys, they're down-and-outers, and there's scarcely one to-day

Can show a dozen colors in his poke;

And me, I'm still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and gray,

And I'm looking for a grub-stake, and I'm broke.

I strolled up old Bonanza. The same old moon looked down;

The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me;

But the cabins all were silent, and the flat, once like a town,

Was mighty still and lonesome-like to see.

There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan,

And turning round a bend I heard a roar,

And there a giant gold-ship of the very newest plan

Was tearing chunks of pay-dirt from the shore.

It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung;

It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs;

Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung;

It glared around with fierce electric eyes.

Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more;

It looked like some great monster in the gloom.

With two to feed its sateless greed, it worked for seven score,

And I sighed: "Ah, old-time miner, here's your doom!"

The idle windlass turns to rust; the sagging sluice-box falls;

The holes you digged are water to the brim;

Your little sod-roofed cabins with the snugly moss-chinked walls

Are deathly now and mouldering and dim.

The battle-field is silent where of old you fought it out;

The claims you fiercely won are lost and sold;

But there's a little army that they'll never put to rout --

The men who simply live to seek the gold.

The men who can't remember when they learned to swing a pack,

Or in what lawless land the quest began;

The solitary seeker with his grub-stake on his back,

The restless buccaneer of pick and pan.

On the mesas of the Southland, on the tundras of the North,

You will find us, changed in face but still the same;

And it isn't need, it isn't greed that sends us faring forth --

It's the fever, it's the glory of the game.

For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust,

Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell;

It's little else you care about; you go because you must,

And you feel that you could follow it to hell.

You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold;

You'd follow it in solitude and pain;

And when you're stiff and battened down let someone whisper "Gold",

You're lief to rise and follow it again.

Yet look you, if I find the stuff it's just like so much dirt;

I fling it to the four winds like a child.

It's wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt,

Till I crawl back, beggared, broken, to the Wild.

Till I crawl back, sapped and sodden, to my grub-stake and my tent --

There's a city, there's an army (hear them shout).

There's the gold in millions, millions, but I haven't got a cent;

And oh, it's me, it's me that found it out.

It was my dream that made it good, my dream that made me go

To lands of dread and death disprized of man;

But oh, I've known a glory that their hearts will never know,

When I picked the first big nugget from my pan.

It's still my dream, my dauntless dream, that drives me forth once more

To seek and starve and suffer in the Vast;

That heaps my heart with eager hope, that glimmers on before --

My dream that will uplift me to the last.

Perhaps I am stark crazy, but there's none of you too sane;

It's just a little matter of degree.

My hobby is to hunt out gold; it's fortressed in my brain;

It's life and love and wife and home to me.

And I'll strike it, yes, I'll strike it; I've a hunch I cannot fail;

I've a vision, I've a prompting, I've a call;

I hear the hoarse stampeding of an army on my trail,

To the last, the greatest gold camp of them all.

Beyond the shark-tooth ranges sawing savage at the sky

There's a lowering land no white man ever struck;

There's gold, there's gold in millions, and I'll find it if I die,

And I'm going there once more to try my luck.

Maybe I'll fail -- what matter? It's a mandate, it's a vow;

And when in lands of dreariness and dread

You seek the last lone frontier, far beyond your frontiers now,

You will find the old prospector, silent, dead.

You will find a tattered tent-pole with a ragged robe below it;

You will find a rusted gold-pan on the sod;

You will find the claim I'm seeking, with my bones as stakes to show it;

But I've sought the last Recorder, and He's -- God.

The Black Sheep

"The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." -- Extract.



Hark to the ewe that bore him:

"What has muddied the strain?

Never his brothers before him

Showed the hint of a stain."

Hark to the tups and wethers;

Hark to the old gray ram:

"We're all of us white, but he's black as night,

And he'll never be worth a damn."

I'm up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard;

"A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard;

Making the bluff I'm busy, doing my six months hard.

"Six months hard and dismissed, sir." Isn't that rather hell?

And all because of the liquor laws and the wiles of a native belle --

Some "hooch" I gave to a siwash brave who swore that he wouldn't tell.

At least they say that I did it. It's so in the town report.

All that I can recall is a night of revel and sport,

When I woke with a "head" in the guard-room, and they dragged me sick into court.

And the O. C. said: "You are guilty", and I said never a word;

For, hang it, you see I couldn't -- I didn't know what had occurred,

And, under the circumstances, denial would be absurd.

But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol.

He fagged for my room at Eton, and didn't I devil his soul!

And now he is getting even, landing me down in the hole.

Plugging away on the wood-pile; doing chores round the square.

There goes an officer's lady -- gives me a haughty stare --

Me that's an earl's own nephew -- that is the hardest to bear.

To think of the poor old mater awaiting her prodigal son.

Tho' I broke her heart with my folly, I was always the white-haired one.

(That fatted calf that they're cooking will surely be overdone.)

I'll go back and yarn to the Bishop; I'll dance with the village belle;

I'll hand round tea to the ladies, and everything will be well.

Where I have been won't matter; what I have seen I won't tell.

I'll soar to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain;

But will they reform me? -- far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain;

But the dog will return to his vomit, the hog to his wallow again.

I've chewed on the rind of creation, and bitter I've tasted the same;

Stacked up against hell and damnation, I've managed to stay in the game;

I've had my moments of sorrow; I've had my seasons of shame.

That's past; when one's nature's a cracked one, it's too jolly hard to mend.

So long as the road is level, so long as I've cash to spend.

I'm bound to go to the devil, and it's all the same in the end.

The bugle is sounding for stables; the men troop off through the gloom;

An orderly laying the tables sings in the bright mess-room.

(I'll wash in the prison bucket, and brush with the prison broom.)

I'll lie in my cell and listen; I'll wish that I couldn't hear

The laugh and the chaff of the fellows swigging the canteen beer;

The nasal tone of the gramophone playing "The Bandolier".

And it seems to me, though it's misty, that night of the flowing bowl,

That the man who potlatched the whiskey and landed me into the hole

Was Grubbe, that unmerciful bounder, Grubbe, of the City Patrol.

---

The Telegraph Operator

I will not wash my face;

I will not brush my hair;

I "pig" around the place --

There's nobody to care.

Nothing but rock and tree;

Nothing but wood and stone,

Oh, God, it's hell to be

Alone, alone, alone!

Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws

Corral me in a ring.

I feel as if I was

The only living thing

On all this blighted earth;

And so I frowst and shrink,

And crouching by my hearth

I hear the thoughts I think.

I think of all I miss --

The boys I used to know;

The girls I used to kiss;

The coin I used to blow:

The bars I used to haunt;

The racket and the row;

The beers I didn't want

(I wish I had 'em now).

Day after day the same,

Only a little worse;

No one to grouch or blame --

Oh, for a loving curse!

Oh, in the night I fear,

Haunted by nameless things,

Just for a voice to cheer,

Just for a hand that clings!

Faintly as from a star

Voices come o'er the line;

Voices of ghosts afar,

Not in this world of mine;

Lives in whose loom I grope;

Words in whose weft I hear

Eager the thrill of hope,

Awful the chill of fear.

I'm thinking out aloud;

I reckon that is bad;

(The snow is like a shroud) --

Maybe I'm going mad.

Say! wouldn't that be tough?

This awful hush that hugs

And chokes one is enough

To make a man go "bugs".

There's not a thing to do;

I cannot sleep at night;

No wonder I'm so blue;

Oh, for a friendly fight!

The din and rush of strife;

A music-hall aglow;

A crowd, a city, life --

Dear God, I miss it so!

Here, you have moped enough!

Brace up and play the game!

But say, it's awful tough --

Day after day the same

(I've said that twice, I bet).

Well, there's not much to say.

I wish I had a pet,

Or something I could play.

Cheer up! don't get so glum

And sick of everything;

The worst is yet to come;

God help you till the Spring.

God shield you from the Fear;

Teach you to laugh, not moan.

Ha! ha! it sounds so queer --

Alone, alone, alone!

---

The Wood-Cutter




The sky is like an envelope,

One of those blue official things;

And, sealing it, to mock our hope,

The moon, a silver wafer, clings.

What shall we find when death gives leave

To read -- our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;

O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;

Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;

Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?

(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)

That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,

I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.

Rest! Well, it's restful around me; it's quiet clean to the core.

The mountains pose in their ermine, in golden the hills are clad;

The big, blue, silt-freighted Yukon seethes by my cabin door,

And I think it's only the river that keeps me from going mad.

By day it's a ruthless monster, a callous, insatiate thing,

With oily bubble and eddy, with sudden swirling of breast;

By night it's a writhing Titan, sullenly murmuring,

Ever and ever goaded, and ever crying for rest.

It cries for its human tribute, but me it will never drown.

I've learned the lore of my river; my river obeys me well.

I hew and I launch my cordwood, and raft it to Dawson town,

Where wood means wine and women, and, incidentally, hell.

Hell and the anguish thereafter. Here as I sit alone

I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care:

(The bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone;

Lips that have mocked at Heaven lend themselves ill to prayer.)

Impotent as a beetle pierced on the needle of Fate;

A wretch in a cosmic death-cell, peaks for my prison bars;

'Whelmed by a world stupendous, lonely and listless I wait,

Drowned in a sea of silence, strewn with confetti of stars.

See! from far up the valley a rapier pierces the night,

The white search-ray of a steamer. Swiftly, serenely it nears;

A proud, white, alien presence, a glittering galley of light,

Confident-poised, triumphant, freighted with hopes and fears.

I look as one looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by;

I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel.

Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky.

Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how I feel.

Maybe you've seen me sometimes; maybe you've pitied me then --

The lonely waif of the wood-camp, here by my cabin door.

Some day you'll look and see not; futile and outcast of men,

I shall be far from your pity, resting forevermore.

My life was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum.

Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt.

Ciphers the total confronts me. Oh, Death, with thy moistened thumb,

Stoop like a petulant schoolboy, wipe me forever out!

---

The Song of the Mouth-Organ

(With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".)


I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;

I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,

And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.

I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;

I am more or less uncertain on the key;

But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights

When you've taken mighty comfort out of me.

I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small

You can pack me in the pocket of your vest;

And when at night so wearily you crawl

Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest,

You take me out and play me soft and low,

The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings;

The tunes you used to fancy long ago,

Before you made a rotten mess of things.

Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes,

And you break off in the middle of a note;

And then, with just the dreariest of sighs,

You drop me in the pocket of your coat.

But somehow I have bucked you up a bit;

And, as you turn around and face the wall,

You don't feel quite so spineless and unfit --

You're not so bad a fellow after all.

Do you recollect the bitter Arctic night;

Your camp beside the canyon on the trail;

Your tent a tiny square of orange light;

The moon above consumptive-like and pale;

Your supper cooked, your little stove aglow;

You tired, but snug and happy as a child?

Then 'twas "Turkey in the Straw" till your lips were nearly raw,

And you hurled your bold defiance at the Wild.

Do you recollect the flashing, lashing pain;

The gulf of humid blackness overhead;

The lightning making rapiers of the rain;

The cattle-horns like candles of the dead

You sitting on your bronco there alone,

In your slicker, saddle-sore and sick with cold?

Do you think the silent herd did not hear "The Mocking Bird",

Or relish "Silver Threads among the Gold"?

Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast;

The head-winds and the icy, roaring seas;

The nights you thought that everything was lost;

The days you toiled in water to your knees;

The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale;

The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam:

When you cheered your messmates nine with "Ben Bolt" and "Clementine",

And "Dixie Land" and "Seeing Nellie Home"?

Let the jammy banjo voice the Younger Son,

Who waits for his remittance to arrive;

I represent the grimy, gritty one,

Who sweats his bones to keep himself alive;

Who's up against the real thing from his birth;

Whose heritage is hard and bitter toil;

I voice the weary, smeary ones of earth,

The helots of the sea and of the soil.

I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance;

I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat;

In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance,

I am simply and symbolically meet;

I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind;

I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death;

At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown,

I shrill impudent triumph at a breath.

I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn;

I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest;

The virtuoso looks on me with scorn;

But there's times when I am better than the best.

Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea;

Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine;

Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain --

There's a lowly, loving kingdom -- and it's mine.

Clancy of the Mounted Police

In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;

Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail --

In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail" --

Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,

Half round the world, if need there be, on bleeding hands and knees.

It's duty, duty, first and last, the Crimson Manual saith;

The Scarlet Rider makes reply: "It's duty -- to the death."

And so they sweep the solitudes, free men from all the earth;

And so they sentinel the woods, the wilds that know their worth;

And so they scour the startled plains and mock at hurt and pain,

And read their Crimson Manual, and find their duty plain.

Knights of the lists of unrenown, born of the frontier's need,

Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed;

Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game,

Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name:

For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In all my lands be peace",

And to maintain his word he gave his West the Scarlet Police.

Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God;

Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud;

Corpselike and stark was the land, with a quiet that crushed and awed,

And the stars of the weird sub-arctic glimmered over its shroud.

Deep in the trench of the valley two men stationed the Post,

Seymour and Clancy the reckless, fresh from the long patrol;

Seymour, the sergeant, and Clancy -- Clancy who made his boast

He could cinch like a bronco the Northland, and cling to the prongs of the Pole.

Two lone men on detachment, standing for law on the trail;

Undismayed in the vastness, wise with the wisdom of old --

Out of the night hailed a half-breed telling a pitiful tale,

"White man starving and crazy on the banks of the Nordenscold."

Up sprang the red-haired Clancy, lean and eager of eye;

Loaded the long toboggan, strapped each dog at its post;

Whirled his lash at the leader; then, with a whoop and a cry,

Into the Great White Silence faded away like a ghost.

The clouds were a misty shadow, the hills were a shadowy mist;

Sunless, voiceless and pulseless, the day was a dream of woe;

Through the ice-rifts the river smoked and bubbled and hissed;

Behind was a trail fresh broken, in front the untrodden snow.

Ahead of the dogs ploughed Clancy, haloed by steaming breath;

Through peril of open water, through ache of insensate cold;

Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death,

Till he came to a cowering cabin on the banks of the Nordenscold.

Then Clancy loosed his revolver, and he strode through the open door;

And there was the man he sought for, crouching beside the fire;

The hair of his beard was singeing, the frost on his back was hoar,

And ever he crooned and chanted as if he never would tire: --

"I panned and I panned in the shiny sand, and I sniped on the river bar;

But I know, I know, that it's down below that the golden treasures are;

So I'll wait and wait till the floods abate, and I'll sink a shaft once more,

And I'd like to bet that I'll go home yet with a brass band playing before."

He was nigh as thin as a sliver, and he whined like a Moose-hide cur;

So Clancy clothed him and nursed him as a mother nurses a child;

Lifted him on the toboggan, wrapped him in robes of fur,

Then with the dogs sore straining started to face the Wild.

Said the Wild, "I will crush this Clancy, so fearless and insolent;

For him will I loose my fury, and blind and buffet and beat;

Pile up my snows to stay him; then when his strength is spent,

Leap on him from my ambush and crush him under my feet.

"Him will I ring with my silence, compass him with my cold;

Closer and closer clutch him unto mine icy breast;

Buffet him with my blizzards, deep in my snows enfold,

Claiming his life as my tribute, giving my wolves the rest."

Clancy crawled through the vastness; o'er him the hate of the Wild;

Full on his face fell the blizzard; cheering his huskies he ran;

Fighting, fierce-hearted and tireless, snows that drifted and piled,

With ever and ever behind him singing the crazy man.

"Sing hey, sing ho, for the ice and snow,

And a heart that's ever merry;

Let us trim and square with a lover's care

(For why should a man be sorry?)

A grave deep, deep, with the moon a-peep,

A grave in the frozen mould.

Sing hey, sing ho, for the winds that blow,

And a grave deep down in the ice and snow,

A grave in the land of gold."

Day after day of darkness, the whirl of the seething snows;

Day after day of blindness, the swoop of the stinging blast;

On through a blur of fury the swing of staggering blows;

On through a world of turmoil, empty, inane and vast.

Night with its writhing storm-whirl, night despairingly black;

Night with its hours of terror, numb and endlessly long;

Night with its weary waiting, fighting the shadows back,

And ever the crouching madman singing his crazy song.

Cold with its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch;

Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm;

Clancy grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch

Being wet-nurse to a looney in the teeth of an arctic storm."

The blizzard passed and the dawn broke, knife-edged and crystal clear;

The sky was a blue-domed iceberg, sunshine outlawed away;

Ever by snowslide and ice-rip haunted and hovered the Fear;

Ever the Wild malignant poised and panted to slay.

The lead-dog freezes in harness -- cut him out of the team!

The lung of the wheel-dog's bleeding -- shoot him and let him lie!

On and on with the others -- lash them until they scream!

"Pull for your lives, you devils! On! To halt is to die."

There in the frozen vastness Clancy fought with his foes;

The ache of the stiffened fingers, the cut of the snowshoe thong;

Cheeks black-raw through the hood-flap, eyes that tingled and closed,

And ever to urge and cheer him quavered the madman's song.

Colder it grew and colder, till the last heat left the earth,

And there in the great stark stillness the bale fires glinted and gleamed,

And the Wild all around exulted and shook with a devilish mirth,

And life was far and forgotten, the ghost of a joy once dreamed.

Death! And one who defied it, a man of the Mounted Police;

Fought it there to a standstill long after hope was gone;

Grinned through his bitter anguish, fought without let or cease,

Suffering, straining, striving, stumbling, struggling on.

Till the dogs lay down in their traces, and rose and staggered and fell;

Till the eyes of him dimmed with shadows, and the trail was so hard to see;

Till the Wild howled out triumphant, and the world was a frozen hell --

Then said Constable Clancy: "I guess that it's up to me."

Far down the trail they saw him, and his hands they were blanched like bone;

His face was a blackened horror, from his eyelids the salt rheum ran;

His feet he was lifting strangely, as if they were made of stone,

But safe in his arms and sleeping he carried the crazy man.

So Clancy got into Barracks, and the boys made rather a scene;

And the O. C. called him a hero, and was nice as a man could be;

But Clancy gazed down his trousers at the place where his toes had been,

And then he howled like a husky, and sang in a shaky key:

"When I go back to the old love that's true to the finger-tips,

I'll say: 'Here's bushels of gold, love,' and I'll kiss my girl on the lips;

'It's yours to have and to hold, love.' It's the proud, proud boy I'll be,

When I go back to the old love that's waited so long for me."

---

Lost

"Black is the sky, but the land is white --

(O the wind, the snow and the storm!) --

Father, where is our boy to-night?

Pray to God he is safe and warm."

"Mother, mother, why should you fear?

Safe is he, and the Arctic moon

Over his cabin shines so clear --

Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark awful sudden. Say, this is mighty queer!

Where in the world have I got to? It's still and black as a tomb.

I reckoned the camp was yonder, I figured the trail was here --

Nothing! Just draw and valley packed with quiet and gloom;

Snow that comes down like feathers, thick and gobby and gray;

Night that looks spiteful ugly -- seems that I've lost my way.

"The cold's got an edge like a jackknife -- it must be forty below;

Leastways that's what it seems like -- it cuts so fierce to the bone.

The wind's getting real ferocious; it's heaving and whirling the snow;

It shrieks with a howl of fury, it dies away to a moan;

Its arms sweep round like a banshee's, swift and icily white,

And buffet and blind and beat me. Lord! it's a hell of a night.

"I'm all tangled up in a blizzard. There's only one thing to do --

Keep on moving and moving; it's death, it's death if I rest.

Oh, God! if I see the morning, if only I struggle through,

I'll say the prayers I've forgotten since I lay on my mother's breast.

I seem going round in a circle; maybe the camp is near.

Say! did somebody holler? Was it a light I saw?

Or was it only a notion? I'll shout, and maybe they'll hear --

No! the wind only drowns me -- shout till my throat is raw.

"The boys are all round the camp-fire wondering when I'll be back.

They'll soon be starting to seek me; they'll scarcely wait for the light.

What will they find, I wonder, when they come to the end of my track --

A hand stuck out of a snowdrift, frozen and stiff and white.

That's what they'll strike, I reckon; that's how they'll find their pard,

A pie-faced corpse in a snowbank -- curse you, don't be a fool!

Play the game to the finish; bet on your very last card;

Nerve yourself for the struggle. Oh, you coward, keep cool!

I'm going to lick this blizzard; I'm going to live the night.

It can't down me with its bluster -- I'm not the kind to be beat.

On hands and knees will I buck it; with every breath will I fight;

It's life, it's life that I fight for -- never it seemed so sweet.

I know that my face is frozen; my hands are numblike and dead;

But oh, my feet keep a-moving, heavy and hard and slow;

They're trying to kill me, kill me, the night that's black overhead,

The wind that cuts like a razor, the whipcord lash of the snow.

Keep a-moving, a-moving; don't, don't stumble, you fool!

Curse this snow that's a-piling a-purpose to block my way.

It's heavy as gold in the rocker, it's white and fleecy as wool;

It's soft as a bed of feathers, it's warm as a stack of hay.

Curse on my feet that slip so, my poor tired, stumbling feet --

I guess they're a job for the surgeon, they feel so queerlike to lift --

I'll rest them just for a moment -- oh, but to rest is sweet!

The awful wind cannot get me, deep, deep down in the drift."

"Father, a bitter cry I heard,

Out of the night so dark and wild.

Why is my heart so strangely stirred?

'Twas like the voice of our erring child."

"Mother, mother, you only heard

A waterfowl in the locked lagoon --

Out of the night a wounded bird --

Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

Who is it talks of sleeping? I'll swear that somebody shook

Me hard by the arm for a moment, but how on earth could it be?

See how my feet are moving -- awfully funny they look --

Moving as if they belonged to a someone that wasn't me.

The wind down the night's long alley bowls me down like a pin;

I stagger and fall and stagger, crawl arm-deep in the snow.

Beaten back to my corner, how can I hope to win?

And there is the blizzard waiting to give me the knockout blow.

Oh, I'm so warm and sleepy! No more hunger and pain.

Just to rest for a moment; was ever rest such a joy?

Ha! what was that? I'll swear it, somebody shook me again;

Somebody seemed to whisper: "Fight to the last, my boy."

Fight! That's right, I must struggle. I know that to rest means death;

Death, but then what does death mean? -- ease from a world of strife.

Life has been none too pleasant; yet with my failing breath

Still and still must I struggle, fight for the gift of life.

* * * * *

Seems that I must be dreaming! Here is the old home trail;

Yonder a light is gleaming; oh, I know it so well!

The air is scented with clover; the cattle wait by the rail;

Father is through with the milking; there goes the supper-bell.

* * * * *

Mother, your boy is crying, out in the night and cold;

Let me in and forgive me, I'll never be bad any more:

I'm, oh, so sick and so sorry: please, dear mother, don't scold --

It's just your boy, and he wants you. . . . Mother, open the door. . . .

"Father, father, I saw a face

Pressed just now to the window-pane!

Oh, it gazed for a moment's space,

Wild and wan, and was gone again!"

"Mother, mother, you saw the snow

Drifted down from the maple tree

(Oh, the wind that is sobbing so!

Weary and worn and old are we) --

Only the snow and a wounded loon --

Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

---

L'Envoi

We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,

Of men who played the game and lost or won;

Of mad stampedes, of toil beyond all measure,

Of camp-fire comfort when the day was done.

We talked of sullen nights by moon-dogs haunted,

Of bird and beast and tree, of rod and gun;

Of boat and tent, of hunting-trip enchanted

Beneath the wonder of the midnight sun;

Of bloody-footed dogs that gnawed the traces,

Of prisoned seas, wind-lashed and winter-locked;

The ice-gray dawn was pale upon our faces,

Yet still we filled the cup and still we talked.

The city street was dimmed. We saw the glitter

Of moon-picked brilliants on the virgin snow,

And down the drifted canyon heard the bitter,

Relentless slogan of the winds of woe.

The city was forgot, and, parka-skirted,

We trod that leagueless land that once we knew;

We saw stream past, down valleys glacier-girted,

The wolf-worn legions of the caribou.

We smoked our pipes, o'er scenes of triumph dwelling;

Of deeds of daring, dire defeats, we talked;

And other tales that lost not in the telling,

Ere to our beds uncertainly we walked.

And so, dear friends, in gentler valleys roaming,

Perhaps, when on my printed page you look,

Your fancies by the firelight may go homing

To that lone land that haply you forsook.

And if perchance you hear the silence calling,

The frozen music of star-yearning heights,

Or, dreaming, see the seines of silver trawling

Across the sky's abyss on vasty nights,

You may recall that sweep of savage splendor,

That land that measures each man at his worth,

And feel in memory, half fierce, half tender,

The brotherhood of men that know the North