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Selections from Ballads of a Cheechako

<h2> My Friends </h2> The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief; And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief; A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief. My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray; The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes like clay; The skin on my gums was a sullen black, and slowly peeling away. I was sure enough in a direful fix, and often I wondered why They did not take the chance that was left and leave me alone to die, Or finish me off with a dose of dope—so utterly lost was I. But no; they brewed me the green-spruce tea, and nursed me there like a child; And the homicide he was good to me, and bathed my sores and smiled; And the thief he starved that I might be fed, and his eyes were kind and mild. Yet they were woefully wicked men, and often at night in pain I heard the murderer speak of his deed and dream it over again; I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain. I'll never forget that bitter dawn, so evil, askew and gray, When they wrapped me round in the skins of beasts and they bore me to a sleigh, And we started out with the nearest post an hundred miles away. I'll never forget the trail they broke, with its tense, unuttered woe; And the crunch, crunch, crunch as their snowshoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow; And my breath would fail, and every beat of my heart was like a blow. And oftentimes I would die the death, yet wake up to life anew; The sun would be all ablaze on the waste, and the sky a blighting blue, And the tears would rise in my snow-blind eyes and furrow my cheeks like dew. And the camps we made when their strength outplayed and the day was pinched and wan; And oh, the joy of that blessed halt, and how I did dread the dawn; And how I hated the weary men who rose and dragged me on. And oh, how I begged to rest, to rest—the snow was so sweet a shroud; And oh, how I cried when they urged me on, cried and cursed them aloud; Yet on they strained, all racked and pained, and sorely their backs were bowed. And then it was all like a lurid dream, and I prayed for a swift release From the ruthless ones who would not leave me to die alone in peace; Till I wakened up and I found myself at the post of the Mounted Police. And there was my friend the murderer, and there was my friend the thief, With bracelets of steel around their wrists, and wicked beyond belief: But when they come to God's judgment seat—may I be allowed the brief. <h2> The Prospector </h2> I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight, A-purpose to revisit the old claim. I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate, And the lads who once were with me in the game. Poor boys, they're down-and-outers, and there's scarcely one to-day Can show a dozen colors in his poke; And me, I'm still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and gray, And I'm looking for a grub-stake, and I'm broke. I strolled up old Bonanza. The same old moon looked down; The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me; But the cabins all were silent, and the flat, once like a town, Was mighty still and lonesome-like to see. There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan, And turning round a bend I heard a roar, And there a giant gold-ship of the very newest plan Was tearing chunks of pay-dirt from the shore. It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung; It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs; Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung; It glared around with fierce electric eyes. Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more; It looked like some great monster in the gloom. With two to feed its sateless greed, it worked for seven score, And I sighed: "Ah, old-time miner, here's your doom!" The idle windlass turns to rust; the sagging sluice-box falls; The holes you digged are water to the brim; Your little sod-roofed cabins with the snugly moss-chinked walls Are deathly now and mouldering and dim. The battle-field is silent where of old you fought it out; The claims you fiercely won are lost and sold; But there's a little army that they'll never put to rout— The men who simply live to seek the gold. The men who can't remember when they learned to swing a pack, Or in what lawless land the quest began; The solitary seeker with his grub-stake on his back, The restless buccaneer of pick and pan. On the mesas of the Southland, on the tundras of the North, You will find us, changed in face but still the same; And it isn't need, it isn't greed that sends us faring forth— It's the fever, it's the glory of the game. For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust, Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell; It's little else you care about; you go because you must, And you feel that you could follow it to hell. You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold; You'd follow it in solitude and pain; And when you're stiff and battened down let someone whisper "Gold", You're lief to rise and follow it again. Yet look you, if I find the stuff it's just like so much dirt; I fling it to the four winds like a child. It's wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt, Till I crawl back, beggared, broken, to the Wild. Till I crawl back, sapped and sodden, to my grub-stake and my tent— There's a city, there's an army (hear them shout). There's the gold in millions, millions, but I haven't got a cent; And oh, it's me, it's me that found it out. It was my dream that made it good, my dream that made me go To lands of dread and death disprized of man; But oh, I've known a glory that their hearts will never know, When I picked the first big nugget from my pan. It's still my dream, my dauntless dream, that drives me forth once more To seek and starve and suffer in the Vast; That heaps my heart with eager hope, that glimmers on before— My dream that will uplift me to the last. Perhaps I am stark crazy, but there's none of you too sane; It's just a little matter of degree. My hobby is to hunt out gold; it's fortressed in my brain; It's life and love and wife and home to me. And I'll strike it, yes, I'll strike it; I've a hunch I cannot fail; I've a vision, I've a prompting, I've a call; I hear the hoarse stampeding of an army on my trail, To the last, the greatest gold camp of them all. Beyond the shark-tooth ranges sawing savage at the sky There's a lowering land no white man ever struck; There's gold, there's gold in millions, and I'll find it if I die, And I'm going there once more to try my luck. Maybe I'll fail—what matter? It's a mandate, it's a vow; And when in lands of dreariness and dread You seek the last lone frontier, far beyond your frontiers now, You will find the old prospector, silent, dead. You will find a tattered tent-pole with a ragged robe below it; You will find a rusted gold-pan on the sod; You will find the claim I'm seeking, with my bones as stakes to show it; But I've sought the last Recorder, and He's—God. <h2> The Black Sheep </h2> "The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." —Extract. Hark to the ewe that bore him: "What has muddied the strain? Never his brothers before him Showed the hint of a stain." Hark to the tups and wethers; Hark to the old gray ram: "We're all of us white, but he's black as night, And he'll never be worth a damn." I'm up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard; "A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard; Making the bluff I'm busy, doing my six months hard. "Six months hard and dismissed, sir." Isn't that rather hell? And all because of the liquor laws and the wiles of a native belle— Some "hooch" I gave to a siwash brave who swore that he wouldn't tell. At least they SAY that I did it. It's so in the town report. All that I can recall is a night of revel and sport, When I woke with a "head" in the guard-room, and they dragged me sick into court. And the O. C. said: "You are guilty", and I said never a word; For, hang it, you see I couldn't—I didn't know WHAT had occurred, And, under the circumstances, denial would be absurd. But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol. He fagged for my room at Eton, and didn't I devil his soul! And now he is getting even, landing me down in the hole. Plugging away on the wood-pile; doing chores round the square. There goes an officer's lady—gives me a haughty stare— Me that's an earl's own nephew—that is the hardest to bear. To think of the poor old mater awaiting her prodigal son. Tho' I broke her heart with my folly, I was always the white-haired one. (That fatted calf that they're cooking will surely be overdone.) I'll go back and yarn to the Bishop; I'll dance with the village belle; I'll hand round tea to the ladies, and everything will be well. Where I have been won't matter; what I have seen I won't tell. I'll soar to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain; But will they reform me?—far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain; But the dog will return to his vomit, the hog to his wallow again. I've chewed on the rind of creation, and bitter I've tasted the same; Stacked up against hell and damnation, I've managed to stay in the game; I've had my moments of sorrow; I've had my seasons of shame. That's past; when one's nature's a cracked one, it's too jolly hard to mend. So long as the road is level, so long as I've cash to spend. I'm bound to go to the devil, and it's all the same in the end. The bugle is sounding for stables; the men troop off through the gloom; An orderly laying the tables sings in the bright mess-room. (I'll wash in the prison bucket, and brush with the prison broom.) I'll lie in my cell and listen; I'll wish that I couldn't hear The laugh and the chaff of the fellows swigging the canteen beer; The nasal tone of the gramophone playing "The Bandolier". And it seems to me, though it's misty, that night of the flowing bowl, That the man who potlatched the whiskey and landed me into the hole Was Grubbe, that Unmerciful Bounder, Grubbe, of the City Patrol. <h2> The Telegraph Operator </h2> I will not wash my face; I will not brush my hair; I "pig" around the place— There's nobody to care. Nothing but rock and tree; Nothing but wood and stone, Oh, God, it's hell to be Alone, alone, alone! Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws Corral me in a ring. I feel as if I was The only living thing On all this blighted earth; And so I frowst and shrink, And crouching by my hearth I hear the thoughts I think. I think of all I miss— The boys I used to know; The girls I used to kiss; The coin I used to blow: The bars I used to haunt; The racket and the row; The beers I didn't want (I wish I had 'em now). Day after day the same, Only a little worse; No one to grouch or blame— Oh, for a loving curse! Oh, in the night I fear, Haunted by nameless things, Just for a voice to cheer, Just for a hand that clings! Faintly as from a star Voices come o'er the line; Voices of ghosts afar, Not in this world of mine; Lives in whose loom I grope; Words in whose weft I hear Eager the thrill of hope, Awful the chill of fear. I'm thinking out aloud; I reckon that is bad; (The snow is like a shroud)— Maybe I'm going mad. Say! wouldn't that be tough? This awful hush that hugs And chokes one is enough To make a man go "bugs". There's not a thing to do; I cannot sleep at night; No wonder I'm so blue; Oh, for a friendly fight! The din and rush of strife; A music-hall aglow; A crowd, a city, life— Dear God, I miss it so! Here, you have moped enough! Brace up and play the game! But say, it's awful tough— Day after day the same (I've said that twice, I bet). Well, there's not much to say. I wish I had a pet, Or something I could play. Cheer up! don't get so glum And sick of everything; The worst is yet to come; God help you till the Spring. God shield you from the Fear; Teach you to laugh, not moan. Ha! ha! it sounds so queer— Alone, alone, alone! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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