Old Spookses Pass

Project Gutenberg's Old Spookses' Pass, by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Old Spookses' Pass
Author: Isabella Valancy Crawford
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6815]
[Yes, we are more
than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on
January 27, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD

SPOOKSES' PASS ***
Produced by Vital Debroey, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from
images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
Historical Microreproductions.
OLD SPOOKSES' PASS
MALCOLM'S KATIE, AND OTHER
POEMS,
BY
ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD.
AUTHOR OF
A LITTLE BACCHANTE, OR SOME BLACK
SHEEP, ETC., ETC., ETC.
TO JOHN IRWIN CRAWFORD, ESQ., M. D., R. N.
THIS
VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY HIS
NIECE ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD.
OLD SPOOKSES' PASS.
I.
We'd camp'd that night on Yaller Bull Flat--
Thar was Possum Billy,
an' Tom, an' me.
Right smart at throwin' a lariat
Was them two
fellers, as ever I see;
An' for ridin' a broncho, or argyin' squar
With
the devil roll'd up in the hide of a mule,
Them two fellers that camp'd
with me thar
Would hev made an' or'nary feller a fool.
II.
Fur argyfyin' in any way,
Thet hed to be argy'd with sinew an' bone,

I never see'd fellers could argy like them;
But just right har I will
hev to own
Thet whar brains come in in the game of life,
They held
the poorest keerds in the lot;
An' when hands was shown, some other

chap
Rak'd in the hull of the blam'd old pot!
III.
We was short of hands, the herd was large,
An' watch an' watch we
divided the night;
We could hear the coyotes howl an' whine,
But
the darn'd critters kept out of sight
Of the camp-fire blazin'; an' now
an' then
Thar come a rustle an' sort of rush,
A rattle a-sneakin' away
from the blaze,
Thro' the rattlin', cracklin' grey sage bush.
IV.
We'd chanc'd that night on a pootyish lot,
With a tol'ble show of tall,
sweet grass--
We was takin' Speredo's drove across
The Rockies, by
way of "Old Spookses' Pass"--
An' a mite of a creek went crinklin'
down,
Like a "pocket" bust in the rocks overhead,
Consid'able
shrunk, by the summer drought,
To a silver streak in its gravelly bed.
V.
'Twas a fairish spot fur to camp a' night;
An' chipper I felt, tho' sort of
skeer'd
That them two cowboys with only me,
Couldn't boss three
thousand head of a herd.
I took the fust of the watch myself;
An' as
the red sun down the mountains sprang,
I roll'd a fresh quid, an' got
on the back
Of my peart leetle chunk of a tough mustang.
VI.
An' Possum Billy was sleepin' sound,
Es only a cowboy knows how
to sleep;
An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old
Buffalo bull
feel kind o' cheap.
Wal, pard, I reckin' thar's no sech time
For
dwind'lin' a chap in his own conceit,
Es when them mountains an'
awful stars,
Jest hark to the tramp of his mustang's feet.
VII.

It 'pears to me that them solemn hills
Beckin' them stars so big an'
calm,
An' whisper, "Make tracks this way, my friends,
We've ring'd
in here a specimen man;
He's here alone, so we'll take a look
Thro'
his ganzy an' vest, an' his blood an' bone,
An post ourselves as to
whether his heart
Is flesh, or a rotten, made-up stone!"
VIII.
An' it's often seemed, on a midnight watch,
When the mountains
blacken'd the dry, brown sod,
That a chap, if he shut his eyes, might
grip
The great kind hand of his Father-God.
I rode round the herd at
a sort of walk--
The shadders come stealin' thick an' black;
I'd jest
got to leave tew that thar chunk
Of a mustang tew keep in the proper
track.
IX.
Ever see'd a herd ring'd in at night?
Wal, it's sort of cur'us,--the
watchin' sky,
The howl of coyotes--a great black mass,
With thar
an' thar the gleam of a eye
An' the white of a horn--an', now an' then,

An' old bull liftin' his shaggy head,
With a beller like a broke-up
thunder growl--
An' the summer lightnin', quick an' red,
X.
Twistin' an' turnin' amid the stars,
Silent