Ballads of a Cheechako Part 2

For things were done in the Midnight Sun that no tongue will ever tell; And men there be who walk earth-free, but whose names are writ in h.e.l.l-- Are writ in flames with the guilty names of Fournier and Labelle.

Put not your trust in a poke of dust would ye sleep the sleep of sin; For there be those who would rob your clothes ere yet the dawn comes in; And a prize likewise in a woman's eyes is a peerless black fox skin.

Put your faith in the mountain cat if you lie within his lair; Trust the fangs of the mother-wolf, and the claws of the lead-ripped bear; But oh, of the wiles and the gold-tooth smiles of a dance-hall wench beware!

Wherefore it was beyond all laws that l.u.s.ts of man restrain, A man drank deep and sank to sleep never to wake again; And the Yukon swallowed through a hole the cold corpse of the slain.

III.

The black fox skin a shadow cast from the roof nigh to the floor; And sleek it seemed and soft it gleamed, and the woman stroked it o'er; And the man stood by with a brooding eye, and gnashed his teeth and swore.

When thieves and thugs fall out and fight there's fell arrears to pay; And soon or late sin meets its fate, and so it fell one day That Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike fanged up like dogs at bay.

"The skin is mine, all mine," she cried; "I did the deed alone."

"It's share and share with a guilt-yoked pair", he hissed in a pregnant tone; And so they snarled like malamutes over a mildewed bone.

And so they fought, by fear untaught, till haply it befell One dawn of day she slipped away to Dawson town to sell The fruit of sin, this black fox skin that had made their lives a h.e.l.l.

She slipped away as still he lay, she clutched the wondrous fur; Her pulses beat, her foot was fleet, her fear was as a spur; She laughed with 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 s.p.a.ce.

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 G.o.d, 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 hards.h.i.+p 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.

G.o.d knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame.

G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l, 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 s.l.u.t; And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the b.u.t.t.

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 pa.s.s 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 was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray.

Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose; The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows.

The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase, each leaf was a jewel agleam.

The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream; So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time; So bright I could see, as plain as could be, the wings of G.o.d's angels as.h.i.+ne.

As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek.

Ah me, it was sad and evil and bad, two neighbors who never would speak!

I knew that full well like a devil in h.e.l.l he was hatching out, early and late, A system to bear through the frost-spangled air the warm, crimson waves of his hate.

I only could peer and shudder and fear--'twas ever so ghastly and still; But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill.

I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame; I pleaded aloud for a s.h.i.+eld, for a shroud--Oh, G.o.d! then calamity came.

Mad! If I'm mad then you too are mad; but it's all in the point of view.

If you'd looked at them things gallivantin' on wings, all purple and green and blue; If you'd noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark; If you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark; If you'd watched IT with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls-- You'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls.

Oh, some they were blue, and they slithered right through; they were silent and squashy and round; And some they were green; they were wriggly and lean; they writhed with so hateful a sound.

My blood seemed to freeze; I fell on my knees; my face was a white splash of dread.

Oh, the Green and the Blue, they were gruesome to view; but the worst of them all were the Red.

They came through the door, they came through the floor, they came through the moss-creviced logs.

They were savage and dire; they were whiskered with fire; they bickered like malamute dogs.

They ravined in rings like iniquitous things; they gulped down the Green and the Blue.

I crinkled with fear whene'er they drew near, and nearer and nearer they drew.

And then came the crown of Horror's grim crown, the monster so loathsomely red.

Each eye was a pin that shot out and in, as, squidlike, it oozed to my bed; So softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire; Its belly was white with a sulphurous light, it jaws were a-drooling with fire.