the black night I followed him;
Hills did we cross and rivers swim—
My fleet foot horse and I.
The morn burst red, a gory wound,
O’er iron hills and savage ground;
And there was never another sound
Save beat of horses’ hoofs.
Unto the murderer’s ear they said,
“Thou’rt of the dead! Thou’rt of the dead!”
Still on his stallion black he sped
While death spurred on behind.
Fiery dust from the blasted plain
Burnt like lava in every vein;
But I rode on with steady rein
Though the fierce sand-devils spun.
Then to a sullen land we came,
Whose earth was brass, whose sky was flame;
I made it balm with her blessed name
In the land of Mexico.
With gasp and groan my poor horse fell—
Last of all things that loved me well!
I turned my head—a smoking shell
Veiled me his dying throes.
But fast on vengeful foot was I;
His steed fell, too, and was left to die;
He fled where a river’s channel dry
Made way to the rolling stream.
Red as my rage the huge sun sank.
My foe bent low on the river’s bank
And deep of the kindly flood he drank
While the giant stars broke forth.
Then face to face and man to man
I fought him where the river ran,
While the trembling palm held up its fan
And the emerald serpents lay.
The mad, remorseless bullets broke
From tongues of flame in the sulphur smoke;
The air was rent till the desert spoke
To the echoing hills afar.
Hot from his lips the curses burst;
He fell! The sands were slaked of thirst;
A stream in the stream ran dark at first,
And the stones grew red as hearts.
I shot him where the Rio flows;
I shot him when the moon arose;
And where he lies the vulture knows
Along the Tinto River.
But where she lies to none is known
Save to my poor heart and a lonely stone
On which I sit and weep alone
Where the cactus stars are white.
Where I shall lie, no man can say;
The flowers all are fallen away;
The desert is so drear and grey,
O Marta of Milrone!
Jack Dempsey’s Grave
Far out in the wilds of Oregon,
On a lonely mountain side,
Where Columbia’s mighty waters
Roll down to the Ocean’s tide;
Where the giant fir and cedar
Are imaged in the wave,
O’ergrown with ferns and lichens,
I found poor Dempsey’s grave.
I found no marble monolith,
No broken shaft nor stone,
Recording sixty victories
This vanquished victor won;
No rose, no shamrock could I find,
No mortal here to tell
Where sleeps in this forsaken spot
The immortal Nonpareil.
A winding, wooded canyon road
That mortals seldom tread
Leads up this lonely mountain
To this desert of the dead.
And the western sun was sinking
In Pacific’s golden wave;
And these solemn pines kept watching
Over poor Jack Dempsey’s grave.
That man of honor and of iron,
That man of heart and steel,
That man who far out-classed his class
And made mankind to feel
That Dempsey’s name and Dempsey’s fame
Should live in serried stone,
Is now at rest far in the West
In the wilds of Oregon.
Forgotten by ten thousand throats
That thundered his acclaim—
Forgotten by his friends and foes
That cheered his very name;
Oblivion wraps his faded form,
But ages hence shall save
The memory of that Irish lad
That fills poor Dempsey’s grave.
O Fame, why sleeps thy favored son
In wilds, in woods, in weeds?
And shall he ever thus sleep on—
Interred his valiant deeds?
’Tis strange New York should thus forget
Its “bravest of the brave,”
And in the wilds of Oregon
Unmarked, leave Dempsey’s grave.
The Cattle Round-Up
Once more are we met for a season of pleasure,
That shall smooth from our brows every furrow of care,
For the sake of old times shall we each tread a measure
And drink to the lees in the eyes of the fair.
Once more let the handclasp of years past be given;
Let us once more be boys and forget we are men;
Let friendships the chances of fortune have riven
Be renewed and the smiling past come back again.
The past, when the prairie was big and the cattle
Were as “scary” as ever the antelope grew—
When to carry a gun, to make our spurs rattle,
And to ride a blue streak was the most that we knew;
The past when we headed each year for Dodge City
And punched up the drags on the old Chisholm Trail;
When the world was all bright and the girls were all pretty,
And a feller could “mav’rick” and stay out of jail.
Then here’s to the eyes that like diamonds are gleaming,
And make the lamps blush that their duties are o’er;
And here’s to the lips where young love lies a-dreaming;
And here’s to the feet light as air on the floor;
And here’s to the memories—fun’s sweetest sequel;
And here’s to the night we shall ever recall;
And here’s to the time—time shall know not its equal
When we danced the day in at the Cattlemen’s Ball.
A Cowboy’s Worrying Love
I ust to read in the novel books ’bout fellers that got the prod
From an arrer shot from his hidin’ place by the hand o’ the Cupid god,
An’ I’d laugh at the cussed chumps they was a-wastin’ their breath in sighs
An’ goin’ around with a locoed look a-campin’ inside their eyes.
I’ve read o’ the gals that broke ’em up a-sailin’ in airy flight
On angel pinions above their beds as they dreampt o’ the same at night,
An’ a sort o’ disgusted frown’d bunch the wrinkles acrost my brow,
An’ I’d call ’em a lot o’ sissy boys—but I’m seein’ it different now.
I got the jab in my rough ol’ heart, an’ I got it a-plenty, too,
A center shot from a pair o’ eyes of the winninest sort o’ blue,
An’ I ride the ranges a-sighin’ sighs, as cranky as a locoed steer—
A durned heap worse than the novel blokes that the narrative gals’d queer.
Just hain’t no energy left no mo’, go ’round like a orphant calf
A-thinkin’ about that sagehen’s eyes that give me the Cupid gaff,
An’ I’m all skeered up when I hit the thought some other rider might
Cut in ahead on a faster hoss an’
