Were satisfied with something no one saw.
Carved horse meat passed around for wolfing raw
And much was cached to save it from the sun.
Now when the work about the camp was done
And all the wounds had got rude handed care,
The Colonel called the men about him there
And spoke of Wallace eighty miles away.
Who started yonder might not see the day;
Yet two must dare that peril with the tale
Of urgent need; and if the two should fail,
God help the rest!
It seemed that everyone
Who had an arm left fit to raise a gun
And legs for swinging leather begged to go.
But all agreed with old Pierre Trudeau,
The grizzled trapper, when he “ ’lowed he knowed
The prairie like a farmer did a road,
And many was the Injun he had fooled.”
And Stillwell’s youth and daring overruled
The others. Big he was and fleet of limb
And for his laughing pluck men honored him,
Despite that weedy age when boys begin
To get a little conscious of the chin
And jokers dub them “Whiskers” for the lack.
These two were swallowed in the soppy black
And wearily the sodden night dragged by.
At last the chill rain ceased. A dirty sky
Leaked morning. Culver, Farley, Day and Smith
Had found a comrade to adventure with
And come upon the country that is kind.
But Mooers was slow in making up his mind
To venture, though with any breath he might.
Stark to the drab indecency of light,
The tumbled heaps, that once were horses, lay
With naked ribs and haunches lopped away—
Good friends at need with all their fleetness gone.
Like wolves that smell a feast the foe came on,
A skulking pack. They met a gust of lead
That flung them with their wounded and their dead
Back to the spying summits of the hills,
Content to let the enemy that kills
Without a wound complete the task begun.
Dawn cleared the sky, and all day long the sun
Shone hotly through a lens of amethyst—
Like some incorrigible optimist
Who overworks the sympathetic role.
All day the troopers sweltered in the bowl
Of soppy sand, and wondered if the two
Were dead by now; or had they gotten through?
And if they hadn’t—What about the meat?
Another day or two of steaming heat
Would fix it for the buzzards and the crows;
And there’d be choicer banqueting for those
If no one came. So when a western hill
Burned red and blackened, and the stars came chill,
Two others started crawling down the flat
For Wallace; and for long hours after that
Men listened, listened, listened for a cry,
But heard no sound. And just before the sky
Began to pale, the two stole back unhurt.
The dark was full of shadow men, alert
To block the way wherever one might go.
Alas, what chance for Stillwell and Trudeau?
That day the dozen wounded bore their plight
Less cheerfully than when the rainy night
Had held so great a promise. All day long,
As one who hums a half forgotten song
By poignant bits, the dying surgeon moaned;
But when the west was getting sober-toned,
He choked a little and forgot the tune.
And men were silent, wondering how soon
They’d be like that.
Now when the tipping Wain,
Above the Star, poured slumber on the plain,
Jack Donovan and Pliley disappeared
Down river where the starry haze made weird
The narrow gulch. They seemed as good as dead;
And all next day the parting words they said,
“We won’t be coming back,” were taken wrong.
The fourth sun since the battle lingered long.
Putrescent horseflesh now befouled the air.
Some tried to think they liked the prickly pear.
Some tightened up their belts a hole or so.
And certain of the wounded babbled low
Of places other than the noisome pits,
Because the fever sped their straying wits
Like homing bumblebees that know the hive.
That day the Colonel found his leg alive
With life that wasn’t his.
The fifth sun crept;
The evening dawdled; morning overslept.
It seemed the dark would never go away;
The kiotes filled it with a roundelay
Of toothsome horses smelling to the sky.
But somehow morning happened by and by.
All day the Colonel scanned the prairie rims
And found it hard to keep away the whims
That dogged him; often, wide awake, he dreamed.
The more he thought of it, the more it seemed
That all should die of hunger wasn’t fair;
And so he called the sound men round him there
And spoke of Wallace and the chance they stood
To make their way to safety, if they would.
As for himself and other cripples—well,
They’d take a chance, and if the worst befell,
Were soldiers.
There was silence for a space
While each man slyly sought his neighbor’s face
To see what better thing a hope might kill.
Then there was one who growled: “The hell we will!
We’ve fought together and we’ll die so too!”
One might have thought relief had come in view
To hear the shout that rose.
The slow sun sank.
The empty prairie gloomed. The horses stank.
The kiotes sang. The starry dark was cold.
That night the prowling wolves grew over bold
And one was cooking when the sun came up.
It gave the sick a little broth to sup;
And for the rest, they joked and made it do.
And all day long the cruising buzzards flew
Above the island, eager to descend;
While, raucously prophetic of the end,
The crows wheeled round it hungrily to pry;
And mounted warriors loomed against the sky
To peer and vanish. Darkness fell at last;
But when the daylight came and when it passed
The Colonel scarcely knew, for things got mixed;
The moment was forever, strangely fixed,
And never in a moment. Still he kept
One certain purpose, even when he slept,
To cheer the men by seeming undismayed.
But when the eighth dawn came, he grew afraid
Of his own weakness. Stubbornly he sat,
His tortured face half hidden by his hat,
And feigned to read a novel one had found
Among the baggage. But the print went round
And wouldn’t talk however it was turned.
At last the morning of the ninth day burned.
Again he strove to regiment the herds
Of dancing letters into marching words,
When suddenly the whole command went mad.
They yelled; they danced the way the letters had;
They tossed their hats.
Then presently he knew
’Twas cavalry that made the hillside blue—
The cavalry from Wallace!
VIII
The Yellow God
Autumn’s goad
Had thronged the weed-grown Powder River Road
With bison following the shrinking green.
Again the Platte and Smoky Hill had
