Ballads of a Cheechako | Page 8

glee, she did not see him rise and follow her.
The bluffs uprear and grimly peer far over Dawson town;?They see its lights a blaze o' nights and harshly they look down; They mock the plan and plot of man with grim, ironic frown.
The trail was steep; 'twas at the time when swiftly sinks the snow; All honey-combed, the river ice was rotting down below;?The river chafed beneath its rind with many a mighty throe.
And up the swift and oozy drift a woman climbed in fear,?Clutching to her a black fox fur as if she held it dear;?And hard she pressed it to her breast--then Windy Ike drew near.
She made no moan--her heart was stone--she read his smiling face, And like a dream flashed all her life's dark horror and disgrace; A moment only--with a snarl he hurled her into space.
She rolled for nigh an hundred feet; she bounded like a ball; From crag to crag she carromed down through snow and timber fall; . . . A hole gaped in the river ice; the spray flashed--that was all.
A bird sang for the joy of spring, so piercing sweet and frail; And blinding bright the land was dight in gay and glittering mail; And with a wondrous black fox skin a man slid down the trail.
IV.
A wedge-faced man there was who ran along the river bank,?Who stumbled through each drift and slough, and ever slipped and sank, And ever cursed his Maker's name, and ever "hooch" he drank.
He travelled like a hunted thing, hard harried, sore distrest; The old grandmother moon crept out from her cloud-quilted nest; The aged mountains mocked at him in their primeval rest.
Grim shadows diapered the snow; the air was strangely mild; The valley's girth was dumb with mirth, the laughter of the wild; The still, sardonic laughter of an ogre o'er a child.
The river writhed beneath the ice; it groaned like one in pain, And yawning chasms opened wide, and closed and yawned again; And sheets of silver heaved on high until they split in twain.
From out the road-house by the trail they saw a man afar?Make for the narrow river-reach where the swift cross-currents are; Where, frail and worn, the ice is torn and the angry waters jar.
But they did not see him crash and sink into the icy flow;?They did not see him clinging there, gripped by the undertow, Clawing with bleeding finger-nails at the jagged ice and snow.
They found a note beside the hole where he had stumbled in: "Here met his fate by evil luck a man who lived in sin,?And to the one who loves me least I leave this black fox skin."
And strange it is; for, though they searched the river all around, No trace or sign of black fox skin was ever after found;?Though one man said he saw the tread of HOOFS deep in the ground.
The Ballad of Pious Pete
"The North has got him." --Yukonism.
I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did. I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid. I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could; I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail;?I plotted and planned for his good.?By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold, With precept and prayer, with hope and despair,?in hunger and hardship and cold.?I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit; In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul,?I strove with the powers of the Pit.?I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town;?I dragged him from dissolute brawls;?But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.
God knows what I did he should seek to be rid?of one who would save him from shame.?God knows what I bore that night when he swore?and bade me make tracks from his claim.?I started to tell of the horrors of hell,?when sudden his eyes lit like coals;?And "Chuck it," says he, "don't persecute me?with your cant and your saving of souls."?I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child,?but he called me the son of a slut;?And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run,?he threatened my face with the butt.?So what could I do (I leave it to you)? With curses he harried me forth; Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the North.
Our cabins were near; I could see, I could hear;?but between us there rippled the creek;?And all summer through, with a rancor that grew,?he would pass me and never would speak.?Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death?crept down from the peaks far away;?The water was still; the twilight