The Spell of the Yukon | Page 9

in the west, And the long, long shift is over . . . Master, I've earned it -- Rest.
Grin
If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about --
Grin.?If you're feeling pretty groggy, and you're licked beyond a doubt --
Grin.?Don't let him see you're funking, let him know with every clout, Though your face is battered to a pulp, your blooming heart is stout; Just stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out --
And grin.?This life's a bally battle, and the same advice holds true
Of grin.?If you're up against it badly, then it's only one on you,
So grin.?If the future's black as thunder, don't let people see you're blue; Just cultivate a cast-iron smile of joy the whole day through; If they call you "Little Sunshine", wish that THEY'D no troubles, too --
You may -- grin.?Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough,
You'll grin.?Sink to sleep at midnight, and although you're feeling tough,
Yet grin.?There's nothing gained by whining, and you're not that kind of stuff; You're a fighter from away back, and you WON'T take a rebuff; Your trouble is that you don't know when you have had enough --
Don't give in.?If Fate should down you, just get up and take another cuff; You may bank on it that there is no philosophy like bluff,
And grin.
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,?And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave?and scarcely the strength of a louse,?Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,?and he called for drinks for the house.?There was none could place the stranger's face,?though we searched ourselves for a clue;?But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,?and hold them hard like a spell;?And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head -- and there watching him?was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze. The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands
? my God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red,?the North Lights swept in bars? --?Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . .?hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans, But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love -- A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true -- (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --?the lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean?of all that it once held dear;?That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die. 'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,?and it thrilled you through and through --?"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away . . .