Read Ebook: Ballads of a Cheechako by Service Robert W Robert William

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Ebook has 303 lines and 31905 words, and 7 pages

Then I staked that place from crown to base, and I hit the homeward trail. Ah, God! it was good, though my eyes were blurred, and I crawled like a sickly snail. In that vast white world where the silent sky communes with the silent snow, In hunger and cold and misery I wandered to and fro. But the Lord took pity on my pain, and He led me to the sea, And some ice-bound whalers heard my moan, and they fed and sheltered me. They fed the feeble scarecrow thing that stumbled out of the wild With the ravaged face of a mask of death and the wandering wits of a child-- A craven, cowering bag of bones that once had been a man. They tended me and they brought me back to the world, and here I am.

Some say that the Northern Lights are the glare of the Arctic ice and snow; And some that it's electricity, and nobody seems to know. But I'll tell you now--and if I lie, may my lips be stricken dumb-- It's a MINE, a mine of the precious stuff that men call radium. I'ts a million dollars a pound, they say, and there's tons and tons in sight. You can see it gleam in a golden stream in the solitudes of night. And it's mine, all mine--and say! if you have a hundred plunks to spare, I'll let you have the chance of your life, I'll sell you a quarter share. You turn it down? Well, I'll make it ten, seeing as you are my friend. Nothing doing? Say! don't be hard--have you got a dollar to lend? Just a dollar to help me out, I know you'll treat me white; I'll do as much for you some day . . . God bless you, sir; good-night.

The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame, When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name; Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow; Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow; They knew him far for the fitful man who spat forth blood on the snow.

"Did ever you see such a skin?" quoth he; "there's nought in the world so fine-- Such fullness of fur as black as the night, such lustre, such size, such shine; It's life to a one-lunged man like me; it's London, it's women, it's wine.

"The Moose-hides called it the devil-fox, and swore that no man could kill; That he who hunted it, soon or late, must surely suffer some ill; But I laughed at them and their old squaw-tales. Ha! Ha! I'm laughing still.

"For the devil-fox, it was swift and sly, and it seemed to fleer at me; I would wake in fright by the camp-fire light, hearing its evil glee; Into my dream its eyes would gleam, and its shadow would I see.

"It sniffed and ran from the ptarmigan I had poisoned to excess; Unharmed it sped from my wrathful lead ; Yet it came by night in the stark moonlight to mock at my weariness.

"I tracked it up where the mountains hunch like the vertebrae of the world; I tracked it down to the death-still pits where the avalanche is hurled; From the glooms to the sacerdotal snows, where the carded clouds are curled.

"From the vastitudes where the world protrudes through clouds like seas up-shoaled, I held its track till it led me back to the land I had left of old-- The land I had looted many moons. I was weary and sick and cold.

"I was sick, soul-sick, of the futile chase, and there and then I swore The foul fiend fox might scathless go, for I would hunt no more; Then I rubbed mine eyes in a vast surprise--it stood by my cabin door.

"A rifle raised in the wraith-like gloom, and a vengeful shot that sped; A howl that would thrill a cream-faced corpse-- and the demon fox lay dead. . . . Yet there was never a sign of wound, and never a drop he bled.

"So that was the end of the great black fox, and here is the prize I've won; And now for a drink to cheer me up--I've mushed since the early sun; We'll drink a toast to the sorry ghost of the fox whose race is run."

Now Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike, bad as the worst were they; In their road-house down by the river-trail they waited and watched for prey; With wine and song they joyed night long, and they slept like swine by day.

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 hell-- 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 lusts 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.

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 hell.

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 space.

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.

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

God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame. God 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 hell, 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 slut; And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt. So what could I do ? 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 pass 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 God's angels ashine.

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 hell 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 shield, for a shroud--Oh, God! 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, its jaws were a-drooling with fire. It came and it came; I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look. I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law; I fended it off with the Book. I was weak--oh, so weak--but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night; And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day.

I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; to his cabin so softly I slunk. My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air, all wrapped in a robe in his bunk. It muffled his moans; it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about; His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack, and his teeth all were loosening out. 'Twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard; 'twas a face I will never forget; Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish, and yet As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck, I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings, then laid I my gun on his neck. He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute, And he says unto me, "I'm converted," says he; "for Christ's sake, Peter, don't shoot!"

They're taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant's care; I am humbled indeed, for I'm 'cuffed to a Swede that thinks he's a millionaire. But it's all Gospel true what I'm telling to you-- up there where the Shadow falls-- That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot. And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram". So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin . Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: "Here lies poor Bill MacKie", And I hung it up on my cabin wall and I waited for Bill to die.

Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange, Of a long-deserted line of traps 'way back of the Bighorn range; Of a little hut by the great divide, and a white man stiff and still, Lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill. So I thought of the contract I'd made with him, and I took down from the shelf The swell black box with the silver plate he'd picked out for hisself; And I packed it full of grub and "hooch", and I slung it on the sleigh; Then I harnessed up my team of dogs and was off at dawn of day.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below; When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow; When the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood; When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit, And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit; When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill-- Well, it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill.

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