Songs of the Prairie Part 4

He decides to do a season as a cowboy in the West, (Where they call a man a boy until he's dead) And he tries to walk a-swagger with a military chest, (And he isn't overslept or overfed).

They will set him breaking bronchos, though it's little to his mind; With many new-learned epithets he'll perforate the wind-- How can he know the boys have stuck a thistle on behind?

He will end the exhibition on his head.

They will fill him full of liquor that'll frizzle his inside, (In the cooler he can square it with his G.o.d).

He will spend his nights in places where the _demi-monde_ reside, (In the morning he'll be minus watch and wad).

They'll abuse him as a youngster, they will mock him as a man, They'll make his life a th.o.r.n.y path in every way they can, Till he curses his existence and the day that it began, And he wishes he was rotting in the sod.

He will write long tales to England, tales of bitterness and woe, (They will print 'em in the papers over there).

He will tell them pretty nearly everything he doesn't know, (And they'll take it all for gospel over there).

He will tell them that the country isn't fit for gentlemen, That any who escape from it do not come back again, He is handy with his language and he wields a bitter pen-- To the truth of each a.s.sertion he would swear.

He's a growler, he's a growser, he's a nuisance, he's a b.u.m, (And the country hasn't any room for such) And they cla.s.s him in the papers as "European sc.u.m,"

(They would rather have the Irish or the Dutch).

He's the b.u.t.t of every jester, he's the mark of every joke, He is wearing borrowed trousers--he has put his own in soak-- He's a useless good-for-nothing, beaten, buffeted, and broke, And of sympathy he won't get over-much.

In a dozen years you'll find him with a section of his own, (He had to learn his lesson at the start) With a happy wife and children he is trying to atone-- (For he loves the country now with all his heart).

He's a son of dear old England, he's a hero, he's a brick; He's the kind you may annihilate but you can never lick, For he played and lost, and played and lost, and stayed and took the trick; In a world of men he'll play a manly part.

THE PRODIGALS

Knee-deep our prairies link the seas, Flood-full our voiceless rivers wend; We hold unturned the larder keys On which the future years depend: And shall we suffer alien throngs Usurp the land to us belongs?

What though we are to fortune born And all our paths are paved with gold?

We flaunt our folly up to scorn, Because we keep not what we hold: Why should we rob our right of birth To foster all the breeds of earth?

We picture with unfeigned dismay Man-glutted lands of other flags, They multiply but to decay, And rot in pestilence and rags; Why hasten we to emulate These helpless tragedies of Fate?

The land our children's sons will need, That land we have wide open thrown To heathen knaves of other breed And paunchy pirates of our own: We give away earth's greatest prize, And pat ourselves, and call us wise.

No father he who to the slums For husband to his child would send, And no one worthy of her comes She lives a maiden to the end: Yet we have placed our virgin trust In sp.a.w.n of Continental l.u.s.t.

If dumb we be to Reason's cries-- Our children's cause she pleads in vain-- Our outraged sons at length will rise And seize their heritage again; And fools, who prate of vested right, Will either cease to prate--or fight.

The land is ours, the land will keep, And Time is nowise near its end; We hold our birthright all too cheap Its sacredness to comprehend; In after years our sons will say, "Why frittered ye the land away?"

THE SQUAD OF ONE

Sergeant Blue of the Mounted Police was a so-so kind of a guy; He swore a bit, and he lied a bit, and he boozed a bit on the sly; But he held the post at Snake Creek Bend for country and home and G.o.d, And he cursed the first and forgot the rest--which wasn't the least bit odd.

Now the life of the North West Mounted Police breeds an all-round kind of man; A man who can jug a down-South thug when he rushes the red-eye can; A man who can pray with a dying b.u.m or break up a range stampede-- Such are the men of the Mounted Police and such are the men they breed.

The snow lay deep at the Snake Creek post and deep to east and west, And the Sergeant had made his ten-league beat and settled down to rest In his two-by-four that they called a "post," where the flag flew overhead, And he took a look at his monthly mail, and this is the note he read:

"To Sergeant Blue of the Mounted Police at the post of Snake Creek Bend, From U. S. Marshal of County Blank, greetings to you, my friend, They's a team of toughs give us the slip, though they shot up a couple of blokes, And we reckon they's hid in Snake Creek Gulch and posin' as farmer folks.

"They's as full of sin as a barrel of booze and as quick as a cat with a gun.

So if you happen to hit their trail be first to start the fun; And send out your strongest squad of men and round them up if you can, For dead or alive we want them here. Yours truly, Jack McMann."

And Sergeant Blue sat back and smiled, "Ho, here is a chance of game!

Folks 'round here have been so good that life is getting tame; I know the lie of Snake Creek Gulch--where I used to set my traps-- I'll blow out there to-morrow and I'll bring them in--perhaps."

Next morning Sergeant Blue, arrayed in farmer smock and jeans, In a jumper sleigh he had made himself set out for the evergreens That grow on the bank of Snake Creek Gulch by a homestead shack he knew, And a smoke curled up from the chimney-pipe to welcome Sergeant Blue.

"Aha, and that looks good to me," said the Sergeant to the smoke, "For the lad that owns this homestead shack is East in his wedding-yoke; There are strangers here and I'll bet a farm against a horn of booze That they are the b.u.ms that are predestined to dangle in a noose."

So he drove his horse to the shanty door and hollered a loud "Good-day,"

And a couple of men with fighting-irons came out beside the sleigh, And the Sergeant said, "I'm a stranger here and I've driven a weary mile; If you don't object I'll just sit down by the stove in the shack awhile."

So the Sergeant sat and smoked and talked of the home he had left down East, And the cold, and the snow, and the price of land, and the life of man and beast, But all of a sudden he broke it off with, "Neighbors, take a nip?

There's a horn of the best you'll find out there in my jumper, in the grip."

So one of the two went out for it, and as soon as he closed the door The other one staggered back as he gazed up the nose of a forty-four, But the Sergeant wasted no words with him, "Now, fellow, you're on the rocks, And a noise as loud as a mouse from you and they'll take you out in a box."

So he fastened the bracelets to his wrists and his legs with some binder-thread, And he took his knife and he took his gun and he rolled him onto the bed; And then as number two came in he said, "If you want to live, Put up your dukes and behave yourself or I'll make you into a sieve."

And when he had coupled them each to each, and laid them out on the bed, "It's cold, and I guess we'd better eat before we go," he said.

So he fried some pork and he warmed some beans, and he set out the best he saw, And they ate thereof, and he paid for it, according to British law.

That night in the post sat Sergeant Blue with paper and pen in hand, And this is the word he wrote and signed and mailed to a foreign land: "To U. S. Marshall of County Blank, greetings I give to you; My squad has just brought in your men, and the squad was "Sergeant Blue."

_There are things unguessed, there are tales untold, in the life of the great lone land, But here is a fact that the prairie-bred alone may understand, That a thousand miles in the fastness the fear of the law obtains, And the pioneers of justice were the "Riders of the Plains."_

ALKALI HALL

When Lord Landseeker came out West to have a look around, And spend a little money if the right thing could be found, He hadn't breathed the prairie air more than a day or two Until he was the centre of a philanthropic crew Who sought to show His Lords.h.i.+p all the shortcuts to success (Though why they should have troubled, His Lords.h.i.+p couldn't guess, For each was losing money, as he candidly confessed, Which seemed to be a fas.h.i.+on with the dealers in the West).

Thus His Lords.h.i.+p grew suspicious that his "friends" would turn him down, And he quietly bought a ticket to a little country town; But he didn't know the message that was flashed along the wire To a simple country dealer in the land of his desire; And it read: "Look out for Goggles, he'll be with you this a. m."

And the crowd around the station--well, he merely smiled to them, And thought it jolly decent they'd a.s.semble, don'tcherknow, And file along behind him as they followed, in a row.

The snow had fallen softly all the calm November night, And the morning found the praires with a covering of white; But His Lords.h.i.+p took a citizen who "happened" in his way, And they drove into the country for the most part of the day, Until they reached a section that was flat and free from stone, And the citizen remarked about a fellow he had known Who offered thirty dollars for this section in the fall, But the owner wanted forty, or he wouldn't sell at all.