Flint and Feather: Collected Verse Part 2

The path of coals outstretches, white with heat, A forest fir's length--ready for his feet.

Unflinching as a rock he steps along The burning ma.s.s, and sings his wild war song; Sings, as he sang when once he used to roam Throughout the forests of his southern home, Where, down the Genesee, the water roars, Where gentle Mohawk purls between its sh.o.r.es, Songs, that of exploit and of prowess tell; Songs of the Iroquois invincible.

Up the long trail of fire he boasting goes, Dancing a war dance to defy his foes.

His flesh is scorched, his muscles burn and shrink, But still he dances to death's awful brink.

The eagle plume that crests his haughty head Will _never_ droop until his heart be dead.

Slower and slower yet his footstep swings, Wilder and wilder still his death-song rings, Fiercer and fiercer thro' the forest bounds His voice that leaps to Happier Hunting Grounds.

One savage yell--

Then loyal to his race, He bends to death--but _never_ to disgrace.

THE PILOT OF THE PLAINS

"False," they said, "thy Pale-face lover, from the land of waking morn; Rise and wed thy Redskin wooer, n.o.bler warrior ne'er was born; Cease thy watching, cease thy dreaming, Show the white thine Indian scorn."

Thus they taunted her, declaring, "He remembers naught of thee: Likely some white maid he wooeth, far beyond the inland sea."

But she answered ever kindly, "He will come again to me,"

Till the dusk of Indian summer crept athwart the western skies; But a deeper dusk was burning in her dark and dreaming eyes, As she scanned the rolling prairie, Where the foothills fall, and rise.

Till the autumn came and vanished, till the season of the rains, Till the western world lay fettered in midwinter's crystal chains, Still she listened for his coming, Still she watched the distant plains.

Then a night with nor'land tempest, nor'land snows a-swirling fast, Out upon the pathless prairie came the Pale-face through the blast, Calling, calling, "Yakonwita, I am coming, love, at last."

Hovered night above, about him, dark its wings and cold and dread; Never unto trail or tepee were his straying footsteps led; Till benumbed, he sank, and pillowed On the drifting snows his head,

Saying, "O! my Yakonwita call me, call me, be my guide To the lodge beyond the prairie--for I vowed ere winter died I would come again, beloved; I would claim my Indian bride."

"Yakonwita, Yakonwita!" Oh, the dreariness that strains Through the voice that calling, quivers, till a whisper but remains, "Yakonwita, Yakonwita, I am lost upon the plains."

But the Silent Spirit hushed him, lulled him as he cried anew, "Save me, save me! O! beloved, I am Pale but I am true.

Yakonwita, Yakonwita, I am dying, love, for you."

Leagues afar, across the prairie, she had risen from her bed, Roused her kinsmen from their slumber: "He has come to-night," she said.

"I can hear him calling, calling; But his voice is as the dead.

"Listen!" and they sate all silent, while the tempest louder grew, And a spirit-voice called faintly, "I am dying, love, for you."

Then they wailed, "O! Yakonwita.

He was Pale, but he was true."

Wrapped she then her ermine round her, stepped without the tepee door, Saying, "I must follow, follow, though he call for evermore, Yakonwita, Yakonwita;"

And they never saw her more.

Late at night, say Indian hunters, when the starlight clouds or wanes, Far away they see a maiden, misty as the autumn rains, Guiding with her lamp of moonlight Hunters lost upon the plains.

THE CATTLE THIEF

They were coming across the prairie, they were galloping hard and fast; For the eyes of those desperate riders had sighted their man at last-- Sighted him off to Eastward, where the Cree encampment lay, Where the cotton woods fringed the river, miles and miles away.

Mistake him? Never! Mistake him? the famous Eagle Chief!

That terror to all the settlers, that desperate Cattle Thief-- That monstrous, fearless Indian, who lorded it over the plain, Who thieved and raided, and scouted, who rode like a hurricane!

But they've tracked him across the prairie; they've followed him hard and fast; For those desperate English settlers have sighted their man at last.

Up they wheeled to the tepees, all their British blood aflame, Bent on bullets and bloodshed, bent on bringing down their game; But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that lion had left his lair, And they cursed like a troop of demons--for the women alone were there.

"The sneaking Indian coward," they hissed; "he hides while yet he can; He'll come in the night for cattle, but he's scared to face a _man_."

"Never!" and up from the cotton woods rang the voice of Eagle Chief; And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the Cattle Thief.

Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty years had rolled Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the bone and old; Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the warmth of blood.

Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the sight of food.

He turned, like a hunted lion: "I know not fear,"

said he; And the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in the language of the Cree.

"I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I kill you _all_," he said; But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen b.a.l.l.s of lead Whizzed through the air about him like a shower of metal rain, And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped dead on the open plain.

And that band of cursing settlers gave one triumphant yell, And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that writhed and fell.

"Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carca.s.s on the plain; Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he'd have treated us the same."

A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed high, But the first stroke was arrested by a woman's strange, wild cry.

And out into the open, with a courage past belief, She dashed, and spread her blanket o'er the corpse of the Cattle Thief; And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in the language of the Cree, "If you mean to touch that body, you must cut your way through _me_."

And that band of cursing settlers dropped backward one by one, For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was a woman to let alone.

And then she raved in a frenzy that they scarcely understood, Raved of the wrongs she had suffered since her earliest babyhood: "Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch that dead man to your shame; You have stolen my father's spirit, but his body I only claim.

You have killed him, but you shall not dare to touch him now he's dead.

You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief, though you robbed him first of bread-- Robbed him and robbed my people--look there, at that shrunken face, Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and your race.

What have you left to us of land, what have you left of game, What have you brought but evil, and curses since you came?

How have you paid us for our game? how paid us for our land?

By a _book_, to save our souls from the sins _you_ brought in your other hand.

Go back with your new religion, we never have understood Your robbing an Indian's _body_, and mocking his _soul_ with food.

Go back with your new religion, and find--if find you can-- The _honest_ man you have ever made from out a _starving_ man.

You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not our meat; When _you_ pay for the land you live in, _we'll_ pay for the meat we eat.

Give back our land and our country, give back our herds of game; Give back the furs and the forests that were ours before you came; Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come with your new belief, And blame, if you dare, the hunger that _drove_ him to be a thief."

A CRY FROM AN INDIAN WIFE

My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell; We may not meet to-morrow; who can tell What mighty ills befall our little band, Or what you'll suffer from the white man's hand?

Here is your knife! I thought 'twas sheathed for aye.

No roaming bison calls for it to-day; No hide of prairie cattle will it maim; The plains are bare, it seeks a n.o.bler game: 'Twill drink the life-blood of a soldier host.

Go; rise and strike, no matter what the cost.

Yet stay. Revolt not at the Union Jack, Nor raise Thy hand against this stripling pack Of white-faced warriors, marching West to quell Our fallen tribe that rises to rebel.

They all are young and beautiful and good; Curse to the war that drinks their harmless blood.

Curse to the fate that brought them from the East To be our chiefs--to make our nation least That breathes the air of this vast continent.

Still their new rule and council is well meant.

They but forget we Indians owned the land From ocean unto ocean; that they stand Upon a soil that centuries agone Was our sole kingdom and our right alone.

They never think how they would feel to-day, If some great nation came from far away, Wresting their country from their hapless braves, Giving what they gave us--but wars and graves.

Then go and strike for liberty and life, And bring back honour to your Indian wife.