Dissolving in the starry crystal sphere
’Mid which they seemed suspended. Late to camp,
They launched while yet the crawling valley damp
Made islands of the distant hills and hid
The moaning flood. The Half Way Pyramid
That noon stared in upon them from the south.
’Twas starlight when they camped at Hell Creek’s mouth,
Among those hills where evermore in vain
The Spring comes wooing, and the April rain
Is tears upon a tomb. And once again
The dead land echoed to the songs of men
Bound dayward when the dawn was but a streak.
Halfway to noon they sighted Big Dry Creek,
Not choked with grave dust now, but carolling
The universal music of the spring.
Then when the day was midway down the sky,
They reached the Milk. And howsoe’er the eye
Might sweep that valley with a far-flung gaze,
It found no spot uncovered with a maze
Of bison moving lazily at browse—
Scarce wilder than a herd of dairy cows
That know their herdsman.
Now the whole band willed
To tarry. So they beached their boats and killed
Three fading heifers; sliced the juicy rumps
For broiling over embers; set the humps
And loins to roast on willow spits, and threw
The hearts and livers in a pot to stew
Against the time of dulling appetites.
And when the stream ran opalescent lights
And in a scarlet glow the new moon set,
The feast began. And some were eating yet,
And some again in intervals of sleep,
When upside down above the polar steep
The Dipper hung. And many tales were told
And there was hearty laughter as of old,
With Fink’s guffaw to swell it now and then.
It seemed old times were coming back again;
That truly they had launched upon a trip
Whereof the shining goal was comradeship:
And tears were in the laughter of Talbeau,
So glad was he. For how may mortals know
Their gladness, save they sense it by the fear
That whispers how the very thing held dear
May pass away?
The smoky dawn was lit,
And, suddenly become aware of it,
A flock of blue cranes, dozing on the sand,
With startled cries awoke the sprawling band
And took the misty air with moaning wings.
Disgruntled with the chill drab scheme of things,
Still half asleep and heavy with the feast,
The trappers launched their boats. But when the east
Burned rosily, therefrom a raw wind blew,
And ever with the growing day it grew
Until the stream rose choppily and drove
The fleet ashore. Camped snugly in a grove
Of cottonwoods, they slept. And when the gale,
Together with the light, began to fail,
They ’rose and ate and set adrift again.
It seemed the solid world that mothers men
With twilight and the falling moon had passed,
And there was nothing but a hollow vast,
By time-outlasting stars remotely lit,
And they who at the central point of it
Hung motionless; while, rather sensed than seen,
The phantoms of a world that had been green
Stole by in silence—shapes that once were trees,
Black wraiths of bushes, airy traceries
Remembering the hills. Then sleep made swift
The swinging of the Dipper and the lift
Of stars that dwell upon the day’s frontier;
Until at length the wheeling hollow sphere
Began to fill. And just at morning-shine
They landed at the Little Porcupine.
Again they slept and, putting off at night,
They passed the Elk Horn Prairie on the right
Halfway to dawn and Wolf Creek. One night more
Had vanished when they slept upon the shore
Beside the Poplar’s mouth. And three had fled
When, black against the early morning red,
The Fort that Henry builded heard their calls,
And sentries’ rifles spurting from the walls
Spilled drawling echoes. Then the gates swung wide
And shouting trappers thronged the riverside
To welcome back the homing voyageurs.
That day was spent in sorting out the furs,
With eager talk of how the winter went;
And with the growing night grew merriment.
The hump and haunches of a bison cow
Hung roasting at the heaped-up embers now
On Henry’s hearth. The backlog whined and popped
And, sitting squat or lounging elbow-propped,
Shrewd traders in the merchandise of tales
Held traffic, grandly careless how the scales
Tiptilted with a slight excessive weight.
And when the roast was finished, how they ate!
And there was that which set them singing too
Against the deep bass music of the flue,
While catgut screamed ecstatic in the lead,
Encouraging the voices used and keyed
To vast and windy spaces.
Later came
A gentler mood when, staring at the flame,
Men ventured reminiscences and spoke
About Kentucky people or the folk
Back yonder in Virginia or the ways
They knew in old St. Louis; till the blaze
Fell blue upon the hearth, and in the gloom
And melancholy stillness of the room
They heard the wind of midnight wail outside.
Then there was one who poked the logs and cried:
“Is this a weeping drunk? I swear I’m like
To tear my hair! Sing something lively, Mike!”
And Fink said nought; but after poring long
Upon the logs, began an Irish song—
A gently grieving thing like April rain,
That while it wakes old memories of pain,
Wakes also odors of the violet.
A broken heart, it seemed, could ne’er forget
The eyes of Nora, dead upon the hill.
And when he ceased the men sat very still,
As hearing yet the low caressing note
Of some lost angel mourning in his throat.
And afterwhile Mike spoke: “Shure, now,” said he,
“ ’Tis in a woman’s eyes shtrong liquors be;
And if ye drink av thim—and if ye drink—”
For just a moment in the face of Fink
Talbeau beheld that angel yearning through;
And wondering if Carpenter saw too,
He looked, and lo! the guileless fellow—grinned!
As dreaming water, stricken by a wind,
Gives up the imaged heaven that it knows,
So Fink’s face lost the angel. He arose
And left the place without a word to say.
The morrow was a perfect April day;
Nor might one guess—so friendly was the sun,
So kind the air—what thread at length was spun,
What shears were opened now to sever it.
No sullen mood was Mike’s. His biting wit
Made gay the trappers busy with the fur;
Though more and ever more on Carpenter
His sallies fell, with ever keener whet.
And Carpenter, unskilled in banter, met
The sharper sally with the broader grin.
But, by and by, Mike made a jest, wherein
Some wanton innuendo lurked and leered,
About the Long Knife’s girl. The place went weird
With sudden silence as the tall man strode
Across the room, nor lacked an open road
Among the men. A glitter in his stare
Belied the smile he bore;
