Class ^EV^5_y GopightN»_l3A_^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. CACTUS AND PINE SONGS OF THE SOUTHWEST BY SHARLOT M. HALL BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH ^ COMPANY 1911 Copyright, I9IO Sherman, French & Company C^C!.A:a78"«'iB \ To THE mother who bore my body; To the land that mothered my soul ; To the Ultimate Guide who led me Scarred through the battle, but whole ; Mother, and Land, atnd The Vision, Stern trails where my feet were set; Take these from the Price I owe ye — Whose life is less than the Debt. CONTENTS THE WEST THE SANTA FE TRAIL THE SONG OF THE COLORADO TWO BITS SPRING IN THE DESERT IN OLD TUCSON THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MARY THE SONG OF THE PINE SHEEP HERDING THE MERCY OF NA-CHIS THE SEA TO A DESERT DWELLER HIS PLACE THE TRAIL OF DEATH THE PINES OF THE MOGOLLONES THE IVORY CRUCIFIX A SONG FROM THE HILLS JUAN OF THE SLAG POTS OVER THE RANGE A SADDLE SONG AT MISSION PURISSIMA POPPIES OF WICKENBURG BOOT HILL .... THE DESERT QUEEN TO A HOME IN A CANON THE DEATH OF THE OLD HUNTER THE MASS OF MANGAS THE WATER TANK AT DUSK DOLORES' OLLA PAGE 1 5 9 12 16 18 20 23 26 28 31 33 35 38 40 43 45 47 49 51 54 55 57 58 59 61 64 67 NIGHT IN THE PINES THE DESERT THE EAGLE OF SACRAMENTO CACTUS AND ROSE OUR LADY OF MIRAGE THE MAID OF TUCANO A FLOWER ON THE TRAIL THE OCCULTATION OF VENUS A FOREST LULLABY THE COLORADO RIVER THE END OF THE TRAIL THE RANGE RIDER THE YUCCA PALMS IN THE BRACKEN ARIZONA .... CAMP FIRE TALES THE HASH-WRASTLER WATCH MONTE BILL .... BEYOND THE DESERT THE GREATER FLAG THE HYMN OF THE MEN THAT FAIL THE LAST CAMP-FIRE THE GIVERS AGREED QUITS .... MEDUSA TO PERSEUS THE LONG QUEST A LITANY OF EVERY DAY WIND SONG PAGE 69 71 72 77 79 80 85 86 87 88 89 90 92 93 94 101 105 109 115 119 122 124 125 126 127 130 132 134 PAGE THE LOST THOUGHTS .... 136 THE STRANGER 138 DAY'S END 139 THE FIRST FIRE ON THE HEARTH . 140 A TRUCE WITH DEAD SOULS . . 142 A FRIEND 143 MAGDALEN 145 THE EARTH MADONNA .... 146 LOVE'S WISDOM ..... 147 THE GIFTS 149 LIFE IS A DAY 151 THE COMPACT 153 COMPANIONED 155 ALONE . 157 THE INHERITOR 158 ON MY OWN PORTRAIT .... 161 THE IMMORTAL 162 THE BEDESMAN OF THE YEAR . . 165 THE LONG MARCH 166 THE RACE MOTHER 170 ROAD'S END 172 THE CHOOSING 173 WINE OF DREAMS 175 MY GARDEN 177 SUMMER APPLES 178 HER FINGER FATE 179 DUMB IN JUNE 181 MEMORIAM 182 AS A LITTLE SHADOW ON THE GRASS 184 DAWN 185 A BALLAD OF CHARLIE'S MEN . . 186 PAGE A LOST IDEAL 188 THE LIFE-BOND 189 TO SONG 190 HER GIFT . . . 191 THE LIFE EXPRESS 192 FOR A BIRTHDAY 193 GODSPEED 194 A CHANT TO DEATH 195 THE FAR-CALLED 197 TIRED .... 199 WHEN SHE WENT ON 200 O GREAT CONSOLER 201 AND THIS IS LIFE 203 THE THINKER 204 CACTUS AND PINE THE WEST When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod, Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God; The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride ; And he who had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen, Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains between ; The silence of utmost desert, and canons rifted and riven. And the music of wide-flung forests were strong winds shout to heaven. Then high and apart he set her and bade the gray seas guard. And the lean sands clutching her garments' hem keep stern and solemn ward. What dreams she knew as she waited! What strange keels touched her shore ! And feet went into the stillness and returned to the sea no more. They passed through her dream like shadows — till she woke one pregnant morn And watched Magellan's white-winged ships swing round the ice-bound Horn; [1] She thrilled to their masterful presage, those dauntless sails from afar. And laughed as she leaned to the ocean till her face shone out like a star. And men who toiled in the drudging hives of a world as flat as a floor Thrilled in their souls to her laughter and turned with face to the door; And creeds as hoary as Adam, and feuds as old as Cain, Fell deaf on the ear that harkened and caught that far refrain ; Into dungeons by light forgotten, and prisons of grim despair, Hope came with pale reflection of her star on the swooning air; And the old, hedged, human whirlpool, with its seething misery, Broke bound, as a pent-up river breaks through to the healing sea. Calling, calling, calling; resistless, imperative, strong ; Soldier and priest and dreamer — she drew them, a mighty throng; The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band. And many a brave hope measured but bleach- ing bones in the sand; [2] Yet for one that fell a hundred sprang out to fill his place; For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race. Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed — and the weaklings shrank; Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank. Stern as the land before them, and strong as the waters crossed ; Men who had looked on the face of defeat nor counted the battle lost ; Uncrowned rulers and statesmen, shaping their daily need To the law of brother with brother, till the world stood by to heed; The sills of a greater empire they hewed and hammered and turned. And the torch of a larger freedom from their blazing hilltops burned ; Till the old ideals that had led them grew dim as a childhood's dream. And Caste went down in the balance, and Man- hood stood supreme. The wanderers of earth turned to her, outcast of the older lands ; With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them pitying hands ; [3] And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main: "Send me your weary, house-worn broods, and I'll send you Men again ! Lo, here in my wind-swept reaches, by my mar- shalled peaks of snow, Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er- tilled fields can grow ; Seed of the Man-Seed springing to stature and strength in my sun; Free, with a limitless freedom no battles of men have won." For men, like the grain of the cornfields, grow small in the huddled crowd; And weak for the breath of spaces where a soul may speak aloud; For hills like stairways to heaven, shaming the level track ; And sick with the clang of pavements, and the marts of the trafficking pack; Greatness is born of greatness, and breadth of a breadth profound ; The old Antaean fable of strength renewed from the ground Was a human truth for the ages ; since the hour of the Eden-birth, That man among men was strongest who stood with his feet on the earth. [4] THE SANTA FE TRAIL This way walked Fate; and as she went flung far the hne of destiny That bound an untracked continent to brother- hood from sea to sea ; That long gray trail of dream and hope, marked mile by mile with graves that keep On every barren hill and slope some stout heart lost in dreamless sleep. Patience and faith and fortitude were willed to it and justified; Stern, homely virtues, plain and rude; eternal as the sky, and wide. Nor ever sea king dared the sea in braver mood than those who went Strong-armed to wrest from Mystery their birth-right, half a continent. Gay, hawk-eyed, brown-faced voyageurs, tired of the river's muddy tide, Or drawn by whispered, golden lures, or beck- oned by the prairies wide ; These first, and lightly down the wind their songs float backward as they pass ; — So light they go they leave behind scarce one dim footprint on the grass. And after them, lean, rugged, grim, — one marked untrodden heights to scan; The gray peak looking down on him knew something kindred in the man: [5] Prophetic his keen eyes could trace in those lone wastes that seemed to wait, The larger promise of his race, the germ of many an unborn State. Then Fremont, leading Empire's way; beside him, silent, dim, unguessed. Unheralded to claim her own, the Soul of the Awakening West: Behind above the thundering flight of fear- swept bison vaguely beat A murmur dominant with might, the trample of a million feet. That long gray trail ! That path of fate ! For gain or loss, for life or death, Driven by greed or hope or hate, it drew them to the latest breath ; It broke them to its giant mold; it seared their weakness to the bone ; It stripped them stark to sun and cold and mocked at whimperer and drone. And they were Men that bore its mark; and they were Men its service made — Strong-souled to face the utter dark, and watch with Fear still unafraid; Stern school of heroes unconfessed; unweighed for meed of right or wrong; By glib late-comers dispossessed of honors that to them belong; [6] As in the fire-tried furnace hour strange, war- ring elements will fuse To purpose, unity, and power ; to truer strength and nobler use — Unconscious, save that here was life a man might live as manhood meant. They wrought a nation from their strife and shaped it with their discontent. No pulseless, still-born hope was theirs; each man a later Argonaut, Who from great dreams and ceaseless cares out- wove the golden fleece he sought; And single-handed out of need made potent op- portunity ; Nor shamed the hour with laggard deed; nor quailed at naked Destiny: They touched the Wilderness to flower; they gave the unvoiced solitude A tongue that spoke with master power the message of its iron mood: — But ah ! the coast ! The hands that bled ! The toll of heart-aches and of tears ! The stern, white faces of the dead that paved that highway through the years! The long grass hides the rutted trail where tracked those mighty caravans Whose far-lit camp fires low and pale, elude, howe'er the vision scans [7] That lost horizon, shrunk to fit the little roads that come and go, By easy ways of greatness quit, that any chance-drawn foot may know ; Light trails and traffic o'er the dust of them that were a braver breed; Forgotten in the careless lust for larger gain and lesser deed. — Mother of all the Roads that hold that power o'er men that makes or mars ! These lead to cities, lands, and gold — this led to the eternal stars ! [8] THE SONG OF THE COLORADO From the heart of the mighty mountains strong-souled for my fate I came, My far-drawn track to a nameless sea through a land without a name ; And the earth rose up to hold me, to bid me linger and stay ; And the brawn and bone of my mother's race were set to bar my way. Yet I stayed not, I could not linger; my soul was tense to the call The wet winds sing when the long waves leap and beat on the far sea wall. I stayed not, I could not linger; patient, re- sistless, alone, I hewed the trail of my destiny deep in the hin- dering stone. How narrow that first dim pathway — yet deep- ening hour by hour! Years, ages, eons, spent and forgot, while I gathered me might and power To answer the call that led me, to carve my road to the sea, Till my flood swept out with that greater tide as tireless and tameless and free. From the far, wild land that bore me, I drew my blood as wild — [9] I, bom of the glacier's glory, bom of the up- lands piled Like stairs to the door of heaven, that the Maker of All might go Down from His place with honor, to look on the world and know That the sun and the wind and the waters, and the white ice cold and still. Were moving aright in the plan He had made, shaping His wish and will. When the spirit of worship was on me, turning alone, apart, I stayed and carved me temples deep in the mountain's heart. Wide-domed and vast and silent, meet for the God I knew, With shrines that were shadowed and solemn and altars of richest hue; And out of my ceaseless striving I wrought a victor's hymn, Flung up to the stars in greeting from my far track deep and dim. For the earth was put behind me; I reckoned no more with them That come or go at her bidding, and cling to her garment's hem. [10] Apart in mj rock-hewn pathway, where the great cliffs shut me in, The storm-swept clouds were my brethren, and the stars were my kind and kin. Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went as one who goes On some high and strong adventure that only his own heart knows. Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went in my chosen road — I trafficked with no man's burden — I bent me to no man's load. On my tawny, sinuous shoulders no salt-gray ships swung in ; I washed no feet of cities, like a slave whipped out and in ; My will was the law of my moving in the land that my strife had made — As a man in the house he has builded, master and unafraid. O ye that would hedge and bind me — remember- ing whence I came ! I, that was, and was mighty, ere your race had breath or name ! Play with your dreams in the sunshine — delve and toil and plot — Yet I keep the way of my will to the sea, when ye and your race are not ! [11] TWO BITS Two Bits was an old race horse well known from Texas to Arizona. He belonged at the time of his death to Lieut. Charles Curtis (now Capt. Curtis, Military Instructor at the University of Wisconsin), who built the first stockade on the site of the present Fort Whipple, Arizona. The incident is true; wounded to his death, the old horse out-ran the Apaches and after his rider, who was severely wounded, fell off, Two Bits went on to Fort Wingate where the sight of his wounds and the bloody pouches told the story. The old horse headed the relief party and led them back to his fallen rider and then dropped dead. The troops, to all of whom the old race horse was a familiar comrade, buried him under a heap of lava bowlders beside the old Gov- ernment Trail a few miles west of Fort Wingate, New Mexico. Where the shimmering sands of the desert beat In waves to the foothills' rugged line, And cat-claw and cactus and brown mesquite Elbow the cedar and mountain pine; Under the dip of a wind-swept hill, Like a little gray hawk Fort Whipple clung; The fort was a pen of peeled pine logs And forty troopers the army strong. At the very gates when the darkness fell, Prowling Mohave and Yavapai Signalled with shrill coyote yell, Or mocked the night owl's piercing cry ; Till once when the guard turned shuddering For a trace in the east of the welcome dawn. Spent, wounded, a courier reeled to his feet: — "Apaches — rising — Wingate — ^watn !" [12] "And half the troop at the Date Creek Camp !" The Captain muttered ; "Those devils heard !" White-lipped he called for a volunteer To ride Two Bits and carry the word. "Alone; it's a game of hide and seek; One man may win where ten would fail." Himself the saddle and cinches set And headed Two Bits for the Verde Trail. Two Bits ! How his still eyes woke to the chase ! The bravest soul of them all was he ! Hero of many a hard-won race, With a hundred scars for his pedigree. Wary of ambush, and keen of trail, Old in wisdom of march and fray; And the grizzled veteran seemed to know The lives that hung on his hoofs that day. " A week. God speed you and make it less ! Ride by night from the river on." Caps were swung in a silent cheer, A quick salute, and the word was gone. Sunrise, threading the Point of Rocks ; Dusk, in the canons dark and grim. Where coiled like a rope flung down the cliffs. The trail crawls up to the frowning Rim. A pebble turned, a spark out-struck From steel-shod hoofs on the treacherous flint— [13] Ears strain, eyes wait, in the rocks above For the faintest whisper, the farthest glint ; But shod with silence and robed with night They pass untracked, and mile by mile The hills divide for the flying feet, And the stars lean low to guide the while. Never a plumed quail hid her nest With the stealthiest care that a mother may. As crouched at dawn in the chaparral These two, whom a heart-beat might betray. So, hiding and riding, night by night ; Four days, and the end of the journey near; The fort just hid in the distant hills — But hist! A whisper — a breath of fear! They wheel and turn — too late. Ping! Ping! From their very feet a fiery jet. A lurch, a plunge, and the brave old horse Leaped out with his broad breast torn and wet. Ping! Thud! On his neck the rider swayed; Ten thousand deaths if he reeled and fell! Behind, exultant, the painted horde Poured down like a skirmish line from Hell. Not yet ! Not yet ! Those ringing hoofs Have scarred their triumph on many a course ; And the desperate, blood-trailed chase swept on, [14] Apache sinews 'gainst wounded horse. Hour crowding hour till the yells died back, Till the pat of the moccasined feet was gone ; And dumb to heeding of foe or fear The rider dropped, — but the horse kept on. Stiff and stumbling and spent and sore. Plodding the long miles doggedly; Till the daybreak bugles of Wingate rang And a feint neigh answered the reveille. Wide swung the gates — a wounded horse — Red-dabbled pouches and riding gear; A shout, a hurry, a quick-flung word — And "Boots and Saddles" rang sharp and clear. Like a stern commander the old horse turned As the troop filed out, and straight to the head He guided them back on that weary trail Till he fell by his fallen rider — dead — But the man and the message saved. And he Whose brave heart carried the double load, With his last trust kept and his last race won. They buried him there on the Wingate road. [15] SPRING IN THE DESERT Silence, and the heat Hghts shimmer like a mist of sifted silver, Down across the wide, low washes where the strange sand rivers flow; Brown and sun-baked, quiet, waveless, trailed with bleaching, flood-swept bowlders; Rippled into mimic water where the restless whirlwinds go. On the banks the gray mesquite trees droop their slender, lace-leafed branches; Fill the lonely air with fragrance, as a beauty unconf essed ; Till the wild quail comes at sunset with her timorous, plumed covey. And the iris-throated pigeon coos above her hidden nest. Every shrub distills vague sweetness ; every poorest leaf has gathered Some rare breath to tell its gladness in a fitter way than speech ; Here the silken cactus blossoms flaunt their rose and gold and crimson, And the proud zahuaro lifts its pearl-carved crown from careless reach. Like to Lillith's hair down-streaming, soft and shining, glorious, golden, [16] Sways the queenly palo verde robed and wreathed in golden flowers ; And the spirits of dead lovers might have joy again together Where the honey-sweet acacia weaves its shadow- fretted bowers. Velvet-soft and glad and tender goes the night wind down the canons, Touching lightly every petal, rocking leaf and bud and nest ; Whispering secrets to the black bees dozing in the tall wild lilies, Till it hails the sudden sunrise trailing down the mountain's crest. Silence, sunshine, heat lights painting opal- tinted dream and vision Down across the wide, low washes where the whirlwinds wheel and swing; — What of dead hands, sun-dried, bleaching.'' What of heat and thirst and madness.'* Death and life are lost, forgotten, in the won- der of the spring. [17] IN OLD TUCSON In old Tucson, in old Tucson, How swift the happy days ran on ! How warm the yellow sunshine beat Along the white caliche street! The flat roofs caught a brighter sheen From fringing house leeks thick and green, And chiles drying in the sun; Splashes of crimson 'gainst the dun Of clay-spread roof and earthen floor; The squash vine climbing past the door Held in its yellow blossoms deep The drowsy desert bees asleep. By one low wall, at one shut gate. The dusty roadway turned to wait; The pack mules loitered, passing where The muleteers had sudded care Of cinche and pack and harness bell. The oleander blossoms fell. Wind-drifted flecks of flame and snow ; The fruited pomegranate swung low ; And in the patio dim and cool The gray doves flitted round the pool That caught her image lightly as The face that fades across a glass. In old Tucson, in old Tucson, The pool is dry, the face is gone. No dark eyes through the lattice shine, [18] No slim brown hand steals through to mine ; There where her oleander stood The twilight shadows bend and brood, And through the glossed pomegranate leaves The wind remembering waits and grieves; Waits with me, knowing as I know, She may not choose to come and go — She who with life no more has part Save in the dim pool of my heart. And yet I wait, and yet I see The dream that was come back to me ; The green leek springs above the roof. The dove that mourned alone, aloof. Flutes softly to her mate among The fig leaves where the fruit has hung Slow-purpling through the sunny days; And down the golden desert haze The mule bells tinkle faint and far ; — But where her candle shone, a star ; And where I watched her shadow fall, — ■ The gray street and a crumbling wall. [19] THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MARY Throughout the desert region of the Southwest are abandoned mining camps; shafts caved, machinery si- lent and rusting away, sand drifted in the long-empty cabins. In one such deserted camp a child's play-house was found beside a great bowlder, the little toys and treasures undisturbed through all the years. The hoof -worn pack trails still wind down past barren cliff and ledge, And fail and fade like water spilled at the sage gray desert's edge ; Lost in the shifting sand banks, clear where the long dykes lift Their rough, brown, sun-burned shoulders out of the wind-blown drift. Like scars long-healed the weed-grown dumps where the miners plied their craft, And the tuna drops its crimson fruit down the mouth of the caving shaft. A broken shovel, a worn-out pick — and down in the gulch below A lean coyote home? her whelps where the stamps beat blow on blow. Where the tent camp took its careless way to the rocky canon's brink. The plumed quail leads her covey, and the wild deer come to drink ; [20] But then the mule bells tinkled, and, proud of her rank and place, The old white bell mare took the lead, setting the train its pace. And close by a gray-ribbed bowlder, shading her eyes with her hands. Watching the ore trains passing out to the un- known lands, A little, wistful figure with dreaming, gentle face. Like a flower from some old-time garden abloom in that rugged place. Child of the sun-white desert ; no other land she knew; Its cactus and sage were her greenest green ; its skies were her deepest blue; The shy, wild things were her playmates, and under the old cleft stone She builded a little kingdom for her and them alone. And here are her guarded treasures, quaint little shapes of clay. Fashioned by small brown fingers as she sang at her lonely play ; — But the dust lies thick upon them, and sand drifts bar the door. And only a swift green lizard shimmers across the floor. [21] Like memories worn too deep to lose the pack trail still winds down, Out past the old gray bowlder and the ledges seamed and brown; Till here it swerves a hand-width back, where once the rough cross stood. With a child's brief name and a child's scant years carved in the sun-bleached wood. The cross is fallen and crumbling, but still the wild quails call As if they missed a comrade through the sage brush thick and tall; And where the love vine tangles and the wind croons low at even, The little playhouse waits for her, for " Mary, aged seven." [22] THE SONG OF THE PINE Hear now the song of the pine That is sung when strong winds sweep Hot -flung from the mighty South, Or the North Wind bellows deep: Hear thou the song of the pine When the sea-wet West beats in, Or the East from his tether breaks With clamorous, human din. The long boughs quiver and shake, Uproused from their primal ease, And bend as an organ reed When a strong hand strikes the keys ; And a mighty hymn rolls forth To the far hills farthest line. Earth's challenge and trumpet call — Hear now the song of the pine. The strong gray hills are my throne, the rock- ribbed thews of the earth; There have I marshalled my brethren, and laughed at wind and sun; I tent with the crag and the eagle; the Cloud Gods saw my birth; I have drunk the strength of ages — a thou- sand years as one. I have warred with rift and crevice, with ava- lanche and shale. Grappling my barren ridge with the grip of a mail-clad fist; [23] Storms roll their anger around me, torn through with lightnings pale, Or robe me in lonely ermine, or garb me with sodden mist. The stars are my near companions ; ever to them I lift, And grow to their nightly splendor with soul as far and free; Counting the swinging seasons by the planet's veer and drift. Till again the wild Spring-Joy wells up from the earth to me: — The old, fierce joy of living, all primitive, un- denied ; As breathed from the Maker's lips on clay still warm with its touch ; When no soul skulked or whimpered, or in im- potent weakness cried. And life was a strong man's gift to be held in an iron clutch. Held — or flung down as the pine-top shakes down a ripened cone ; Then stretches green fingers skyward with larger faith and hope; Glad without thought or question, undoubtful of earth or sun. From the bent blue overhead to the mold where the dark roots grope. [24] But level sinketh to level as height calls up to height ; Courage is born of danger; the deed of the naked need; Came Ease to sit on the hearth, dear-bought with the ancient might, And drunk with her smile men slept and lapsed to a weaker breed, O men that dream in the lowland, men that drowse in the plain. Wake ye, and turn to the forest, turn to the far, high hills ; Ye shall win from their unspent greatness the olden strength again; Ye shall hear in that lofty silence the battle shout that thrills. Ye shall find in those utmost reaches power un- defiled ; Wisdom untaught of sages, and patience and truth divine; Life tameless still; untainted; primal and po- tent and wild — Rouse ye, nor linger belittled, — shamed by the wind-swung pine. [25] SHEEP HERDING A GRAY, slow-moving, dust-bepowdered wave, That on the edges breaks to scattering spray, Round which the faithful collies wheel and bark To scurry in the laggard feet that stray: A babel of complaining tongues that make The dull air weary with their ceaseless fret; Brown hills akin to those of Gallilee On which the shepherds tend their charges yet. The long, hot days ; the stark, wind-beaten nights ; No human presence, human sight or sound; Grim, silent land of wasted hopes, where they Who came for gold oft times have madness found ; A bleating horror that fore-gathers speech; Freezing the word that from the lip would pass; And sends the herdsman grovelling with his sheep. Face down and beast-like on the trampled grass. The collies halt ; the slow herd sways and reels. Huddled in fright above a low ravine, Where wild with thirst a herd unshepherded Beats up and down — with something dark between ; [26] A narrow circle that they will not cross; A thing to stop the maddest in their run — A guarding dog too weak to lift his head, Who licks a still hand shriveled in the sun. [27] THE MERCY OF NA-CHIS Felix Knox was killed by a band of renegade Apaches under Na-chis, son of the famous chief Ca-chis, near York's Ranch in south-eastern Arizona. Knox made a brave fight and when found his body was not muti- lated, and the face had been covered to keep away the coyotes and vultures. Knox the gambler — Felix Knox ; Trickster, short-card man, if you will; Rustler, brand-wrangler — all of that — But Knox the man and the hero still! For life at best is a hard-set game ; The cards come stacked from the Dealer's hand; And a man plays king of his luck just once — When he faces death in the last grim stand. Knox had been drummer in Crook's command; A devil of daring lived in his drum; With his heart in the call and his hand on the sticks The dead from their sand-filled graves might come: Crippled for life he drummed his last; Shot through the knee in the Delshay fight — But he crawled to a rock and drummed "Ad- vance" Till the Tonto renegades broke in flight. That was the man who shamed Na-chis ! Two miles out on the Clifton Road [28] Beyond York's Ranch the ambush lay, — • Till a near, swift-moving dust-whirl showed Where the buckboard came. Na-chis crouched low And gripped his rifle and grimly smiled As he counted his prey with hawk-like eyes — The men, the woman, the little child. They halted — full in the teeth of the trap. Knox saw — too late. He weighed the chance And thrust the whip in the driver's hand And wheeled the mules: "Back! Back to the ranch!" He cried as he jumped; "I'll hold them off. Whip for your life!" The bullets sung Like swarming bees through the narrow pass. And whirred and hummed and struck and stung. But he turned just once — to wave his hand To wife and child; then straight ahead, With yell for yell and shot for shot. Till the rocks of the pass were spattered red ; And seven bodies bepainted and grim Sprawled in the cactus and sand below; And seven souls of the Devil's kin Went with him the road that dead men know. [29] Ay! That was Knox! When the cowboys came « On the day-old trail of the renegade, Na-chis the butcher, the merciless, This was the tribute the chief had paid To the fearless dead. No scarring fire ; No mangling knife ; but across the face His own rich blanket drawn smooth and straight, Stoned and weighted to keep its place. [30] THE SEA TO A DESERT DWELLER Lo HERE is the sea, the sea! And long waves leaped to my feet; Foam-white the breakers beat, Or crept to the hedging rocks As a whipped cur creeps to the kne^— Look, here is the sea, the sea ! Was it regal, as I had dreamed. With its far-drawn dole of ships? Or sad with the breath of lips That greet their beloved no more? Wetly the white sands gleamed ; Like those other sands they seemed. I have stood as the sun went down, At dusk on the desert's edge. In the grip of a sheltering ledge. And watched the wide plain bum To silver from red and brown; Gem-set like a royal crown. These waves that ripple and roll Have rippled in waves of light Long since to my childish sight; And the pale heat vapors that glide Were sea sprites taking toll For a chartless voyager's soul. [31] Low lights ashine on the lee, Where the orient steamers come ; E'en so the stars at home Hang low in the purple sky ; — 'Twas the face of a friend to me, But they cry "The sea ! The sea !" [32] HIS PLACE To the enduring memory of Clarence H. Shaw, who knew the desert as few men know it, and who Hes at rest in one of its most beautiful corners. This is his place — here where the mountains run, Naked and scarred and seamed up to the face of the sun; His place — reaches of wind-blown sand, brown and barren and old; Where the creosote, scorched and glazed, clings with a stubborn hold; And tall and solemn and strange the fluted cac- tus lifts Its arms like a cross that pleads from the lonely, rock-hedged rifts ; His place — where the great, near stars lean low and burn and shine Still and steady and clear, like lamps at the door of a shrine. This is his land, his land — where the great skies bend Over the wide, clean sweep of a world without measure or end: His land — where across and between the pale, swift whirlwinds go Like souls that may not rest, by their quest sent to and fro: And down the washes of sand the vague mirages lay [33] Their spell of enchanted light, moving in ripple and spray Of waters that gleam and glisten, with joy and color rife — Streams where no mouth may drink, but fair as the River of Life. This is his place — the mesquite, like a thin green mist of tears, Knows the way of his wish, keeps the hope of his years ; Till, one appointed day, comes the with-holden spring ; Then, miracle wrought in gold, that swift, rare blossoming ! This is his place — where silence eternal fills The still, white, sun-drowsed plain, and the slumbering, iron-rimmed hills; Where To-day and Forever mingle, and Changeless and Change are one — Here in his own land he waits till To-day and Forever are done. [34] THE TRAIL OF DEATH The Jornado del Muerto^ the desert trail across southern New Mexico and Arizona. We rode from daybreak; white and hot The sun beat like a hammer-stroke On molten iron ; the blistered dust Rose up in clouds to sere and choke ; But on we rode, gray-white as ghosts, Bepowdered with that bitter snow. The stinging breath of alkali From the grim, crusted earth below. Silent, our footsteps scarcely wrung An echo from the sullen trail; Silent, parched lip and stiffening tongue. We watched the horses fall and fail: Jack's first; he caught my stirrup strap; — God help me! but I shook him off; Death had not diced for two that day To meet him in that Devil's trough. I flung him back my dry canteen. An ounce at most, weighed drop by drop With life; he clutched it, drank, and laughed; Hard, hideous — a peal to stop The strongest heart; then turned and ran With arms outflung and mad eyes set, Straight on where 'gainst the dun sky's rim Green trees stood up, and cool and wet [35] Long silver waves broke on the sand. The cursed mirage! that lures and taunts The thirst-scourged lip and tortured sight Like some lost hope that mocking haunts A dying soul. I tried to call, — The dry words rattled in my throat; And sun and sand and crouching sky — God ! How they seemed to glare and gloat ! Reeling I caught the saddle-horn; On, on; but now it seemed to be The spring-house path, and at the well My mother stood and beckoned me: The bucket glistened; drip, drip, drip, I heard the water fall and plash ; Then keen as Hell the burning wind Awoke me with its fiery lash. On, on; what was that bleaching thing Across the trail .^^ I dared not look; But on — blind, aimless, till the sun Crept grudging past the hills and took His curse from off the gasping land. The blessed dusk! my gaunt horse raised His head and neighed, and staggered on; And I, with bleeding lips, half -crazed, Laughed out; for just above us there, Rock-caught against a blackened ledge A little pool ; one last hard climb ; Full spent we fell upon its hedge — [36] One still forever. Weak I lay And drank; hot hands and temples laved Jack gone, alas ! the horses dead ; But night and water — I was saved ! [37] THE PINES OF THE MOGOLLONES In the forests on the mountains sing the pines a wondrous measure, As the wind, the master-player, sways their branches to and fro: Varied music, full of power, full of passion, joy, and sorrow; Wild and loud with pain and heart-break, then with love and gladness low. And that music holds the story of the world since its first waking; Holds the secret of all living and the life that yet will be; All the lore the wind has gathered as he roamed the wide earth over. From the silent, sun-white desert to the rest- less, moaning sea. In that singing whisper softly voices of the long lost peoples ; Hymns that rose o'er crumbled altars, prayers for the forgotten dead; Mothers' sighs and children's laughter mingle with the soldiers' war cry, Clash of arms and blare of trumpets, and the conquering army's tread. And above this earth-born music rings a higher tone incessant, [38] Calling: "Upward! Upward! Upward! Rise and follow where I go; Leave the camp-fire, leave the quarry, seek the joy that comes of seeking. While the strong peaks keep their places and the snow-sweet waters flow." And the wind, the master-player, blends these varied tones together Till they rise, a glorious paean, from the forests wide and free — Rise and echo on forever ; full of courage, hope, and daring; Wild with all the pain of living, glad with all life's harmony. [39] THE IVORY CRUCIFIX In crossing southern Arizona many years ago the late Captain W. O. O'Neill, "Buckey" O'Neill, as he was then called, saw something protruding from a mound of sand at the foot of a giant cactus. Turning aside to in- vestigate he found the sun-dried bodies of a man and woman, the withered, skeleton hand of the woman still holding an ivory crucifix. Captain O'Neill buried the bodies and brought away the crucifix. Some time later he learned that it had be- longed to the young wife of a Mexican cattle rancher. She had loved one of her husband's vaqueros and they had gone away together. The husband and his men fol- lowed till turned back by the sand storm which had swallowed up the fugitives. It seemed that the woman, too weak to unclasp the crucifix from her neck, had stretched the slender rosary to its full length in her effort to lay the crucifix on her lover's lips as he breathed his last. "Ride, Juan, he follows, follows fast ! " Nay, darling, down the wind You do but hear the trampling herds That flee our path behind: Look forward where the sunrise plays Across the mountain's rim; There shall you measure fairer days With me, and far from him. "Oh! Juan, the desert lies between, A waste of fear and dread; Smitten with bitter winds that shake The white bones of the dead: It lies between, as in our hearts Our sinful loving lies ; Think you that earth will grant us peace An angry heaven denies .f^" [40] "Haste ! Haste ! I hear the click of steel, The ring of muffled spur, And fearful shapes loom grim against The far mirage's blur ; Up-swimming on its trembling light Huge, shadowy giants ride. Like blood-avengers through the haze — He, with his men beside!" Red swung the sun, a sullen disk Across the copper sky, And whirling sand-wreaths pale as ghosts Beat upward spitefully; Beat up and broke, and whirled anew. And called their nameless kin To race with them the race of death No soul of man may win. Forgot and far the fear behind; Before the God of Wrath Out-stretched his hand upon the storm And barred their guilty path: "A cross !" How grim and gray and gaunt The tall zahauro loomed. As if in solemn vigil o'er Some martyr-saint entombed. "Pray! Pray!" she whispered as they fell; "The pitying saints may hear. Jesus ! One mercy in the name [41] Of her that is most dear! Oh ! Mary ! Mother ! if jour grace Be given to such as we, I pray you of your tenderness, Spare him and punish me!" "The crucifix my mother gave!" With dying breath she strove To lay the carven, ivory Christ Upon the lips beloved. "Mine be the penance, gracious Lord!" The dark wall closed apace, As if earth strove to hide from Heaven The anguished, pleading face. Still, still, along the drifted sand ; How still the starlight crept ! How still his vigil sad and lone The gaunt zahuaro kept! There, where in wavering shadows that Like life's threads intermix. Her dead hand still to his dead lips Pressed close the crucifix. [42] A SONG FROM THE HILLS Oh, the black bear on the mountain! Oh, the trout in stream and fountain ! Oh, the bloodhound's bay that echoes loud and clear ! Oh, the buck, his proud head shaking, From the leafy covert breaking. As he scents the air that tells of danger near! Oh, the sunlight softly streaming. On the polished rifle gleaming As we follow on the trail with stealthy tread! Oh, the camp-fire dimly glowing, Dusky, flickering shadows throwing O'er the piney boughs that form the hunter's bed! Oh, the woodland life enchanting. Memory's farthest chamber haunting With the mountain air and odor of the pine! Though a palace door stood waiting, I would pass its golden grating With a smile and never wish its splendors mine. For the forests with their shadows, Hidden springs and sunny meadows. And the mountains in their glory are my own: In the breeze the fir trees whisper Music like a solemn vesper. And the pines take up the song in fuller tone. [43] Life is freer here and fuller; All beside of earth grows duller; And the one whose soul this strong enchantment fills Leaves all other things when dying, And like a homing pigeon flying Turns him back to lie and rest among the hills. [44] JUAN OF THE SLAG POTS the musi- cal squeak of good saddle leather." To HORSE ! as rode the knights of old for tour- ney and affray ; To horse ! the world is wide, and ours, free heart and summer day: Oh! Laughter now shall be our god and every care take wings, And we'll take our marching orders from the song the saddle sings. The gipsey blood is coursing red along each leaping vein ; We are brothers to the bursting flower and kin- dred with the rain: How the voice of nature calls us ! How it beck- ons ! How it rings, In the echoes of the marching song the old saddle sings ! The fir trees standing sentinel upon the moun- tain's crest Have sent their message on the wind to fill us with unrest ; To mingle with our dreams the scent the healing balsam flings, And blend the forest whispers with the song the saddle sings. [49] O jingling spur and rattling rein, brown earth and bending sky, We turn to you to brim again the cup of life run dry; Take toll of all the fancied gain that hard- spent striving brings, But set our days in measure with the song the saddle sings. [50] AT MISSION PURISSIMA The hands are dust that piled these rough brown walls, Yet still the sunshine falls Like a touch warm with love upon the gilded cross, Whose yearly loss By wind and rain has worn its gilt away. As youth, which cannot stay When life frets hard upon its shining stuff: Yet 'tis enough That once the cross was gold, the heart alive to joy. The dark-faced altar boy Still lights the candles at the Virgin's feet; And strange and sad and sweet The air is dim with long-dead incense-smoke: Wan Joseph draws his cloak. Faded and torn, still 'round the Holy Child; And woman-wise and mild Pure Mary bends her soft eyes to the floor, Where from the far-off door, Through which the sky looks and the green- branched trees, On bended, praying knees Sad penitents have worn a weary trail There to the altar rail. Down that old road of pain a woman glides ; The dim place hides [51] Her eyes that plead and lips that wince and pray: The saints that stay Up on the painted walls in the sweet dusk Of sandal-smoke and musk, And scent of withering altar flowers, and holy myrrh, Look down on her With pity — for a saint must understand. In one slim hand She bears a small, rude-shapen earthen jar, Whose roughness cannot mar The rare, green grace of the mimosa tree Whose lace-like tracery Of leaf and stem she touches as she prays. Suppliant she lays Her fingers gently, and each little leaf. Feeling her grief. Folds to its green mate like two hands in prayer : The branches share Her heart's hurt tremble, as if they would plead For her at need. Above the candles in her deep-niched place Pure Mary's face, Compassionate and tender, bids her speak. Entreating, passion-weak, The slow words come : " O Queen of Heaven ! Who yet on earth was even [52] Woman as I — hear this my woman's plea ; Grant this to me, — Thou in whose white breast a woman's heart hath beat. O Pure ! O Sweet ! Keep me, thy little one, still clean and pure. Let me endure All pain of life, so that thou make me strong. Hold me from wrong ; And as these leaves that tremble over-much Close at my touch. Shut thou my heart against this evil love. As the gray dove Beside the water pool would flee the snare, Keep me aware How he who seeks seeks not my soul at all. Which flies beyond his call ; But for his careless joy one idle hour Would bind his power Like Eve's snake round me, laughing as he crushed." There in the hushed. Sweet darkness, pierced by points of candle light Like stars at night. She left the green mimosa at the Virgin's feet, Continually to entreat Her soul's safety — then across the worn old floor She walked, with face transfigured, to the door. [53] POPPIES OF WICKENBURG Where Coronado's men of old Sought the Pecos' fabled gold Vainly many weary days, Now the land is all ablaze. Where the desert breezes stir, Earth, the old sun-worshiper, Lifts her shining chalices Up to tempt the priestly bees. Every golden cup is filled With a nectar sun-distilled; And the perfume. Nature's prayer, Sweetens all the desert air. Poppies, poppies, who would stray O'er the mountains far away. Seeking still Quivira's gold. When your wealth is ours to hold.'' [54] BOOT HILL In the old days of the Frontier, the cemetery in every town and mining camp was called "Boot Hill," because many of its inmates died, literally, '* With their boots on." Today these graveyards, with their sunken, half- obliterated graves, are all that is left of many a once- thriving camp. Their nameless dead are the drift that mark forgotten channels where once the tide of human life flowed full and strong. Go SOFTLY, you whose careless feet Would crush the sage brush, pungent, sweet, And brush the rabbit weed aside From burrows where the ground squirrels hide, And prairie dog his watch-tower keeps Among the ragged gravel heaps. Year long the wind blows up and down Each lessening mound, and drifts the brown, Dried wander-weed there at their feet — Who no more wander, slow or fleet. Sun-bleached, rain-warped, the head boards hold One story, all too quickly told: That here some wild heart takes its rest From spent desire and fruitless quest. Here in the greasewood's scanty shade How many a daring soul was laid! Boots on, full-garbed as when he died; The pistol belted at his side; The worn sombrero on his breast — To prove another man the best. Arrow or knife, or quick-drawn gun — [55] The glad, mad, fearless game was done, A life for stakes — play slow or fast — Win — lose — yet Death was trumps at last. Some went where bar-room tinsel flared, Or painted dance-hall wantons stared ; Some, where the lone, brown ranges bared Their parched length to a parching sky, And God alone might hear the cry From thirst-dried lips that, stiff and cold, Seemed still to babble: " Gold, gold, gold! " Woman, or wine, or greed, or Chance ; — A comrade's shot ; an Indian lance ; By camp or canon, trail or street — Here all games end; here all trails meet. The ground squirrels chatter in the sun; The dry, gray sage leaves, one by one. Drift down, close-curled, in odorous heaps; Above, wide-winged, a wild hawk sweeps ; And on the worn board at the head Of one whose name was fear and dread, A little, solemn ground owl sits. Ah, here the Man and Life are quits ! Go softly, nor with careless feet — Here all games end; here all trails meet. [56] THE DESERT QUEEN a Cereus Giganteus ; the Giant Cactus ' ' of the Southwest. I WAS Zenobia in the olden time And ruled the desert from Palmyra's walls ; I flung my challenge to imperial Rome So far that still across the years it calls In proud defiance — but my halls are dust ; The jackal suns him at the temple door; The wind-blown sands hide street and corridor And heap the palace floor. Forgotten is Aurelian and his might ; Above his grave the beggar children smile; And I, who swayed the East in other days. Am mistress now of many a Western mile: Crowned with a coronal of snowy flowers, And armed and guarded with a thousand spears, I dream — while dim mirages recreate In shimmering light the splendor of past years. [57] TO A HOME IN A CANON Strength of the mighty hills, and peace of them; Peace of white, silent peaks against the sky, And silence of far deserts gray and wide; Freedom of winds that blow in earth's lone places, And the brooding rest of night above the pines. Are in these walls ; eternal as the hills, The desert, and the wind that goes between. The hands will pass; the written word grow dim; The name an echo's echo faint and die; But when its farthest whisper is forgot These walls shall speak of human hope and love ; Shall say to unknown men in unguessed years : " Here one made truce with Time a little hour ; Fought, worked ; held hard-won victory — knew defeat ; Drained Life's cup from the bubbles to the lees And tossed it down and took him to the dust." [58] THE DEATH OF THE OLD HUNTER For a third of a century William Reavis, the "Old Hunter," "The Hermit of Superstition Mountains," lived alone with his traps and rifle and burros, and died at last as he had lived: "Alone with the wind and the stars and the sky." In his life and death he was a type of frontiersman now passed and almost forgot- ten. Out! Carry me out! I choke in these cabin walls ! Lay me down on the earth under the wide night sky: Straight on the strong, clean earth — no idle blanket between; Cheek to cheek with the dust I will watch my last lean hour go by. Farther! Push back that bough till I face the stars : North star — Dipper — Pointer that still holds true; Many a night ye have led — through storm and wind-whipped cloud; Lead still, old guides — I line my last long course by you. Hark! The night wind sweeps through the crackling grass, Nosing the thin, sere weeds that hide in the prairie swale; [59] Rattling the hunted reeds that shiver and shrink in the marsh, With whimper and snarl and whine, like a hound that bays on the trail. Lift me up ! My soul hunts with you tonight. Old mate of a hundred trails ; speed on the eager pack; There was never a road ye knew too wild for my feet to take — Tonight they will keep the way when even ye turn back. Lift me up ! To my feet ! A hand-clasp each ! May your trail be long as mine — knife keen — and powder dry ! Eye true to the bead ! Now go — quick — while I keep my feet! I die as I lived — alone with the wind and the stars and the sky. [60] THE MASS OF MANGAS Mission San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, Arizona, Years had the Mission stood alone, Its silent chapels bat-tenanted; On its altars the gray owl nested her young, And the ground squirrels burrowed above the dead By the western wall, nor stirred their sleep ; Bare lay the fields, sun-scorched and white ; — As black hawks scatter the timorous quail Padre and soldier and neophyte Scattered before the Apache hordes That swept the valley with death and flame — Now back at last like quail to their nests. Timorous, fearing, they slowly came. Priest and people ; to wring anew From the sullen desert a grudging chance For scanty food and room to toil, Or a quick-won end on a blood-stained lance. With fragrant branches of gray mesquite, And waxen yuccas fair and tall ; Lifting their bells like hands in prayer, Slender and snowy and virginal; And desert lilies as frail as hope, They wreathed the altars, and lit once more The long-dead altars, and set the rood Over the arrow-bitten door. [61] The pale Christ leaned from the iron-wood cross High in its niche deep-walled and gray; And under his feet, in order set, Censer and chalice in rough-wrought clay Where once was silver shaped in Spain — Now spoil of fight to the savage foe. And bandied from careless hand to hand Unblest uses and lips to know. The tapers flickered and tenderly The last words whispered and echoed up To the painted saints in the dusk above. As the padre lifted the earthen cup And the blessed wine — but crash it fell, Staining the floor with a crimson tide Unseen of the startled worshipers — For look! where the door unbarred swings wide! Sombre and splendid in paint and plume, With claws of eagle and puma skin, Mangas, the dread Apache chief, And a hundred braves at his back crowd in ; He swept the shards of the cup aside And its silver mate on the altar set: " Padre, the boy you stopped to draw From the lion's jaw makes good his debt. " With Death hot-heel on your track you turned To save a child of the enemy ; [62] Let these, beloved of your hidden God, Be bond of peace for mine and me ; And these in thanks for that other day." Censer and chalice he set them down. And bared his arms of their turquoise beads, And stripped the robe from his shoulders brown. Man by man his men heaped up The pile till it grew to the Virgin's feet ; Skin and blanket, and beads that hung Like jeweled buds in the pale mesquite. Then swift as they came they went again ; But, so 'tis writ in the Mission rolls. With wine and incense the padre straight Said holy mass for their heathen souls, And held them saved to the Mother Church; For a grateful heart is a thing indeed That weighed in the palm of the Savior's hand Out -values penance and prayer and creed; And year by year when the yucca bells Like flags of truce swung tall and white, The name of Mangas was blessed anew With book and taper and solemn rite. [63] THE WATER TANK AT DUSK (In the Harqua Hala desert.) The wild, bare, rock-fanged hills that all day long Shut in the hand-width valley from the world, Like wolfish out-posts which no foot might pass, Creep close as friendly dogs with head on paws And drowsy eyes that watch the evening fire. Their sun-baked, tawny brown melts into mist Of rose and violet and translucent blue. With gold dust powdered softly through the air That swims and shimmers as if all the earth Were carven jewels bathed in golden light. In the soft dusk the desert seems to pant. Only half -rested from the burning day; Yet stirs a little happily to feel The night wind, cool and gentle, whispering In the white-flowered mesquite where wild bees hum Delirious with honey sweets and fragrances ; And through the leafless thorn whose tortured boughs Were wreathed, men say, to crown the suffering Christ On his high cross. (And still each Passion Week The sorrowing tree wears buds like drops of blood In memory.) With swift, soft whirr of wings The gray doves flutter down beside the pool, [64] Cooing their love notes sweet as fairy flutes, And in the grass the fiddler-crickets chirp. The spotted night hawk saws his raucous note, Like some harsh rasp upon an o'er-drawn string ; The squeaking bats drop from the cotton-wood trees, Dipping and diving round the shining pool Where night moths hover like moon-elves astray. It seems the deep blue sky has fallen there In the blue, star-set water, where the wind Makes mimic waves that hardly over-toss The peach-leaf boat on which the dragon fly Rides sailor-wise to rest his gorgeous wings. The hot, dry, day-time scent of sun-burned sand Is drowned in sweetness of the blossoming grape. And pungent odour of the wax-white cups Of yerba mansa, hedging the blue pool With a green wall whose every flower Blooms twice, once on its tall-leafed stalk, and once Down where the waves like silver mirrors mix Its whiteness with the red pomegranate stars. In the shadow of the plume-branched tamerask There is a half -hushed, honey-throated call. And from the cotton-wood's topmost moonlit bough Music's enraptured soul seems waked to answer. [65] So sweet, so low, so pure, so tender-clear; So brimmed with joy; so wistful, plaintive-sad; As if all love o' the world pulsed in that throat ; As if all pain o' life beat in the heart below. It is the mocking bird to his brown mate, The desert's vesper song of rest and peace. [66] DOLORES' OLLA In Mexico the fiesta of San Juan, in the heart of June, is a time of sport and pleasure and love-making. The eve of All Soul's Night in November is a time of uni- versal prayer for the dead. Friendless indeed is the soul for which no word is uttered then, and dearest treasures go, if need be, to buy prayers and candles for the loved one's rest. SAN JUAn's day San Juan's Day in Guadalupe; the plaza is astir With caballeros bold and gay and senoritas shy, And Miguel the alfarero wends through the crowd to her, Dolores with the dusky eyes as soft as twi- lit sky. Dolores 'neath whose lightest touch his heart is like the clay ; Who molds him as he molds his wares upon the whirring wheel; Oh ! may the Saints be good to him on this aus- picious day, And grant him words to tell her all the love a man may feel. Mi alma, see, this oUa — how it flashes in the sun, And shimmers with the iris of paloma's dimpled breast! [67] Lift thou the lid and look within, querida, little one; My heart lies warm below your gaze as birds lie in the nest. ALi. soul's night ** Ay de mi ! Valgame Dios ! Senor, but a mo- ment, stay ! The jar! The oUa! Will you buy it? Very little you shall pay. Look you, burnished green and copper, flecked with waves of rainbow light ; Miguel, best alfarero — Good saints keep his soul tonight! Miguel made it. Ah ! The padre — going to the mass so soon ! Pather, wait — a prayer for Miguel ! Mary, Mother, grant the boon ! — Senor, gracias! When the aves rise tonight for Miguel's rest. Know a woman in the darkness prays that you too may be blest." [68] NIGHT IN THE PINES It were mid-day one had said, with a brighter sun overhead, When a httle hush came steaHng through the branches swaying low; Such a space of silence tender as the pause that serves to render Some sweet music even sweeter in its pulsing after-flow. The gold-sifted light that rested on the bracken plumes green-crested, Shimmered faintly into silver on the diamond- dusted firs ; Upward where the mountain lifted one brown shoulder seamed and rifted, Grew a shadow 'gainst the sky line, softly as the shade that stirs Lightly o'er a sleeper dreaming ; — then the star lamps trimmed and gleaming, From the dim, blue dome near-bending flashed their jewelled radiance down: Where the timid aspens quiver gusty wind-puff^s start and shiver. Like the ghosts of wandering night elves rustling through the needles brown. [69] Night that elsewhere silently lays her spell on land and sea, Soothing restless souls to quiet in the shadow of her wings, Here with hushing tone and slow through the rocking pines croons low Earth-old lullabies as tender as a watching mother sings. Rest ye, weary hearts and lone; lean ye down against mine own; Put aside the fret of living and be glad in dreamless sleep; Lose awhile the vain regretting in the balm of sweet forgetting — Or remember but the promise that the com- ing mornings keep. [70] THE DESERT That silence which enfolds the Great Beyond Broods in these spaces where the yucca palms Like gray old votaries chant unworded psalms, Grand, voiceless harmonies where-to the Heavens respond. Lone, vast, eternal as Eternity, The brown wastes crawl to clutch the wrinkled hills, — Till night lets down her solemn dusk and fills The waiting void with haunting mystery. Here Solitude hath made her dwelling place, As when of old amid untrodden sands. Slow- journeying, wise men of all alien lands Sought at her feet life's hidden roads to trace. All ways of earth, still glad or sad they go, The roads of life — till breath of man shall cease — Silent, the desert keeps her ancient peace. And that last secret which the dead may know. [71] THE EAGLE OF SACRAMENTO This poem is founded upon an incident in Colonel Doniphan's campaign with the Army of the West in 1846-47. The battle of Sacramento was fought Feb. 28, 1847; the Mexican army, accompanied by the gov- ernor and leading citizens of Chihuahua, had taken a strong position in the rocky foothills of the Sierra de Vic- toriano, and there awaited Colonel Doniphan who had about nine hundred men. The Mexican army numbered 2200 men, with heavy artillery and entrenched. They expected to rout the Americans at the first fire, and amused themselves with feasting and sports while await- ing their approach. Colonel Doniphan was compelled to make his attack across a small plain in full range of the artillery and cut by a deep gulch which offered a serious stay to the charge. Just as the column halted on its brink some of the men saw a bald eagle hovering over the plain and set up a shout of "Victory ! The eagle !" They charged up the hill, sweeping the Mexican army before them, with the loss of but one man. Major Owens, who was shot from his horse. The Chihuahuan army lost 1100 men and all stores, sheep, cattle, hard bread, and much silver coin. Sev- eral wagons were found filled with ropes cut in lengths with which to tie the captured Americans. The gov- ernor, citizens, and army fled in confusion back to the city of Chihuahua, which was occupied by Doniphan's troops and held for some weeks. The Hills of Victoriano were gay that winter morning ; Chihuahuan gentlemen looked down tricked out in brave array ; When Trial with the ebon flag rode forth to give us warning. " Your leader " — " Come and take him — ■ and luck be yours the day ! " [72] " No quarter to the Gringo " ! the skull and cross-bones fluttered; Four thousand throats took up the yell, the echoes flung it back; How boastfully, exultantly, the taunting threat they uttered — As coyotes bold with number yelp round a gray wolf's pack. Nine hundred men in buckskin, in patches and in tatters ; Lean and hungry as the deserts we had traversed wearily ; But little versed in pipe clay, in gold lace and such matters — Only our bare brown rifles to match their pageantry. There on the hills above us the proud senores gathered As for some rare fiesta, laughed with their men below; " Now by the flag they jest at they'll pray they ne'er were fathered; Their jaunty coats shall sit awry ere this day's sun is low." Their peons manned the cannon, their rab- ble filled the trenches — We were too mean a crew to soil the hands of gentlemen ; [73] Their mocking words they fling at us, till Mitchell fiercely clenches His fist and shouts : "Now, rangers ! Sweep the vermin from their den ! " Barred with a rain-washed guUey the hill sloped up before us; A deep-worn trench too wide to leap and like to cost us dear ; Just on its edge we halted — broad wings were hovering o'er us — " An omen ! Look ! the eagle ! " uprose a mighty cheer. With one wild charge we crossed the gulch, half on our comrades' shoulders. And, the great bald eagle leading, stormed up the rocky hill; Their grape went wide below us, or crashed among the bowlders. And when our rifles spoke them back the beaten guns were still: We scared them from their cover, we sent the peons flying; We turned on them the cannon they had not wit to fire; What way the battle led us was strewn with dead and dying. And we heaped their gaudy trappings to feed the funeral pyre. [74] One knee around the saddle horn, half loung- ing in his saddle, Sat Doniphan, and whistled as he whittled carelessly. Shaping a cedar splinter to a rough-turned wooden paddle : — " With my compliments to Trial for his pirate flag," said he. The flag was torn and trampled and the throats that cried " No quarter ! " Were silent on the bloody field or sullen in defeat ; The ropes they'd cut to bind our hands we cut again still shorter, And we bound the fleeing stragglers as we caught them in retreat. Back on the road where late they came with pomp and jest and laughter, They fled, the governor leading, to Chihua- hua's very gate; And in their gay-decked carriages our rangers followed after. Or on their prancing horses rode down in martial state. What spoil was ours for taking — bread and corn and sheep and cattle! How the " Gringo beggars " feasted on the feast the Dons had spread! [75] And the priest Ortiz who cursed us and reviled us through the battle, Was left to scare the vultures and say masses for the dead. We had three score captured cannon, guns and gun mules all together ; Our saddle bags were heavy with peso and doubloon ; We had bridles silver-studded and carved of Spanish leather — Ah! well we turned the tale of them that boasted all too soon ! And well we cheered the eagle till the hills above us thundered; We set the old cathedral bells to peal tri- umphantly — And in the gray old plaza, while our prisoners scoffed and wondered. We shamed our sullen foemen when we gave them amnesty. [76] CACTUS AND ROSE She wore red roses as a queen Her jewels when she wills to shine; She pressed one full bud to her lips, The while she bent her eyes to mine: " Were not life cheap for such a flower? " Was it by chance her fingers strayed So near my own? But ere the touch The tempter in my blood was stayed. A mist was on the laughing eyes, It veiled her soft, enticing grace ; Beyond her lure of gold and blue A tender, shadowy, haunting face Grew like a star in twilit skies When evening fades to rarer light; Again I saw the cactus flowers, Blood red, in braids as black as night. Again we paced the earthen floor In waiting measure, till the dance Swept to its swift and dizzy whirl; And there were eyes that looked askance Because her brown hand lay in mine Like some small, gentle, brown-winged bird; And there were hearts had given life For that one shy, low-spoken word [77] That made the night so more than dear; That set mj years to one strange tune Of footfalls on the hard-beat earth, And soft guitar and low-hung moon ; And wind that whispered through the roof's Rude thatch of branches interlaced; And bare, dark, earthen walls whereon The leaping fireHght roughly traced Her shadow, swaying as we danced. — Then morning came, as calm and pale As some dead face where tapers shine; And through the tule reeds the quail Called mournfully — as if they knew No other night would ever be So dear, so rare, so blessed of God, From sunrise to eternity. White-robed as any bride she lay; Like weary stars the tapers shone; And what I vowed in that dim place Was vowed to her dead heart alone: I went forth old, that had been young; But still I keep till life's last hour The quail call through the tule reeds. And one dead, crumbling, cactus flower. [•rs] OUR LADY OF MIRAGE She walks across the desert and the shuttle in her hand Weaves out behind her webs of light that clothe the shifting sand; Where her swift footstep passes strange, shadowy cities rise, And chartless seas roll shoreward where never sea-shore lies ; And where no house was builded nor ever home shall be Stretch green and peaceful homelands with ten- der witchery: Like flowers that bend to greet her soft colors glow and gleam Of gardens never tended beside an unknown stream ; And there like silver shadows move women gentle-eyed, And children run before them and lovers walk beside ; And all that life has banished and all that love has missed Comes in that mystic vision to keep a holy tryst. The restless winds are music, the shifting sands reveal The truth beyond the substance, the dream for- ever real — Across life's poorest barrens, o'er desert waste and slope, She weaves her bright illusions, the blest mirage of hope. [79] THE MAID OF TUCANO Some jears ago a small agate carved with the head of a woman was found in a pre-historic mound near Phoenix, Arizona. More recently the explorations made by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes at Casa Grande have proven these mounds to have been the communal homes of a considerable people, of whom the Pima Indians of the region retain some traditions. Based somewhat upon the carved agate and with a slight thread of tradition in it the poem is still mostly fanciful. Fair lies the vale of Tucano, Rich Heart of the Land of the Sun; Broad spread its emerald mesas, Sparkling its bright waters run; Far spread the golden-plumed maize fields, With orchard and garden between, To where like sentinels watching The pines of the uplands lean. Here in the days long forgotten Ruled Che-he-ah-pik the Chief, And here lived a maid of his people, Fair in her love and her grief. Sister in grace to the yuccas. Swaying white-chaliced and tall; But her heart was the heart of the snow- flower That blooms on the high mountain wall; Far from the reach of the many, Who mar with the dust of their feet And the plucking of idle fingers [80] Blossoms that else were sweet. Yet the fleet-footed, venturesome climber May win to the snowy peaks ; And to him who is true in his loving At last turns the love that he seeks. When the signal-smoke rose on the mountain Like a gray banner tossed in the wind, Or the watch fires at night glimmered star- like Against the grim darkness behind; The Chief said : " My forts are still holden, No enemy strives at the pass ; " But the maid with eyes misty and tender Looked upward and whispered " Alas ! "For the distance that lieth between us! O Heart of my Heart ! Do you dream Of me here in the vale as you wander By rock-riven canon and stream, Where in childhood we gathered the pine nuts, Or plundered the blue pigeon's nest. Or standing knee deep in the bracken Watched the sun burn to gold in the west? " The red roses bloom for my taking, But fairer the roses we knew. Swaying over the cliffs in the spring time, Their pale blossoms dappled with dew; [81] And sweet is the mocking bird's music, And the laughter in garden and hall; But sweeter the wind in the pine trees And the slow-pacing sentinel's call."* So the maiden dreamed, twining the garlands To lay on the Harvest God's shrine, And mingling the fruits of the lowland With balsamic cedar and pine; Till the chief on his roof-terrace lying A-weary of rule and of sport, Let his gaze idly rest on the worker. Alone in the old temple court. The gray walls seemed bright with her presence, As when a stray moonbeam illumes With its silvery radiance the shadow That darkens in desolate rooms: Soft-crooning a melody tender, And low with her home-longing grief. She turned at a footstep and, startled. Looked up from the flowers to the chief. Smiling into her dark eyes that questioned He raised the fresh garlands, " Now see How each blossom you touch, making sweeter, Is robbed of its sweets by a bee. Can you wonder that I, being stronger. And you than the blossoms more sweet, [82] « Was drawn like the bees to the honey And found myself here at your feet? Leave the garlands to fingers less slender, These rough walls to faces less fair, And come where love laughs in the sunshine, And joy waits to welcome you there; Here is silence and service and shadow. There is music and gladness and light, And I, who am chief to all others. Will serve you and love you to-night." Nay, your bees seek the garden buds only; Scant honey the cactus flowers hold; Nor careless hands linger to pluck them, For all of their crimson and gold ; Desert born with the birthright of freedom. They wither and fade in the close, As I pine in the garden-set valley For the breath of the hills and the snows. " Think you love can be bought with a jewel? Or caught in the net of a name? Or a black mountain eaglet held captive Sing sweet as your mocking bird tame? Like to like — go you back to your roses; For me, warrior's daughter and bride. Fitter home is the cloud-beaten fortress Than here by the green river side. [83] " When the feast of the Harvest is over Comes one whom you fighting-men know, Whose station was won at the spear point, Whose fortune is bent with the bow; Stem guard of your battle-swept passes, As free as the winds are and bold ; Yet with honor and truth above jewels, And faithfulness dearer than gold. " So farewell! Nor remember the madness That tempted your fancy and hour; Know no bud ever swells in the desert But thorns hedge the heart of the flower." Che-he-ah-pik passed out of the courtyard And seeking with wonder-lit face A keen-fingered carver of gem stones. He bade him to cunningly trace On red agate the head of the worker, And set it his necklace within; *' So shall those who forget me remember The love that a chief could not win." Dust is the Harvest God's altar; Naught of his people is known — Only the face of the maiden Carved on the red agate stone. [84] A FLOWER ON THE TRAIL My heart was weary yesterday; I said : " The road is long ; The busy hum of middle day Shuts out the morning song; The rush of careless, hurrying feet That crowd the upward slope, Have crushed the daisies into dust. And spent the dews of hope." Then straight within the trampled path The eager throng had trod, A little purple flower unclosed, Nor pined for greener sod : And one whose load had weighed him sore Looked down at it and smiled, And dreamed of woodland trails he loved To follow when a child. So still when bitterness and fret Would drown the melody, Some little harmony steals in To set the music free ; And we may keep till day is done The morning dreams we knew, If ever in our hearts there live The daisies and the dew. [85] THE OCCULTATION OF VENUS The occultation of Venus and the moon, in March, 1899, was wonderfully beautiful and impressive as seen in the desert. A JEWELED crown for an old man's brow, That mystical, splendid, tropic sky Arched low o'er the desert, reaching far Its weary leagues wind-parched and dry: So bare and lone and sad it lay. The gray old land that seemed to yearn With a human longing for some caress From its granite barriers, grim and stern. Shouldering up to the very stars The strong peaks lifted their solemn might; And through their rock-gapped pinnacles burned The wondrous glory that charmed the night. Like a giant's scimeter wrought in gold The late moon rose in the dawn-touched east, And close beside white Venus shone. As once she shone on shrine and priest. Like a soul's white flame the planet passed — Alone the moon rode proud and high — O wait of God ! the lost star swung A silver sphere in the hither sky ; — (Is it so, O Life, that thy light is lost In the disk of Death if we could but know?) And the old land blushed with sudden youth In the tender fire of the morning-glow. [86] A FOREST LULLABY Wind among the green leaves singing, Bend the branches as jou go; Gently, gently, that their swinging Hush the little heart below ; Still the busy little fingers, Softly close the dark-fringed eyes, For no gleam of daylight lingers In the dusky, twilight skies. Silver stars, come peeping, peeping. Weaving with your shining beams. Round my drowsy blossom sleeping. Fairy spells of happy dreams: Lullaby, O captive rover, All your playmates are at rest; Bees have left the scented clover. Baby birds are in the nest. Little rabbits warmly cuddle In the grasses soft and deep ; And the wee white daisies huddle In the shadow fast asleep: Lullaby my bird, my blossom; Sleep my light-winged butterfly. Cradled safe on earth's brown bosom Till the morning you shall lie. [87] THE COLORADO RIVER Long, silent leagues of ever-shifting sand, White-hot and shimmering to the distant hills Where wheeling slow the whirlwind dips and fills, Or beckons like some shadowy, giant hand. Gray wisps of greenwood and mesquite that stand In withered patches like an old man's beard, Ragged and grizzled: nearer, dark and weird, The river slips along the cringing land. Swift to possess and loath to give again. Foam-ribbed and sullen, staggering with the weight Of forests spoiled, he takes his price in full, Stern toll for every drop to land and men; In witness there — Poor pawn of love or hate ! — Caught in a drift a grinning human skull. [88] THE END OF THE TRAIL Sunset — and the end of the Trail; Here the last faint footsteps fail And I go on alone Into the untracked ways ; I who in other days Blazed many a road straight up To the peaks that touch the sun — But now is the climbing done. No more to my feet the trail ; No more to my hand the rein; No more — Ah! never again The sun and the wind, and free! The far stars over me! As the Wilderness called I went; Now deep and solemn and low A Mightier calls — and I go. Nor guide nor compass nor sign; Face out, to the uttermost dark ; And the wind in the strong boughs — Hark ! Paean and dirge for a king! Life, I have loved you well ; Forget the rest when you tell — This soul did not falter, nor quail, Nor shrink at the end of the Trail. [89] THE RANGE RIDER Up and saddle at daybreak, Into the hills with the light, While still on pinon and cedar Lingers the wings of night ; Clatter of hoofs in the canon. Scatter of horns on the trail ; Dim forms lost in the chaparral. Fleeing like frightened quail. Follow ! the deer behind them Pant in a beaten race; Light in its flight is slower Than a mountain steer in chase. 'Ware ! That black bull charges ; Head down, red eyes aglow; Crack! Crack! the pistol flashes — God, but a noble foe! His black bulk reels from the pathway, The horses reek and sweat; Unsaddle a space and breathe them. The day's before us yet: Look back from our bed of bracken Here on the world's green roof. You'd lie at less ease in the green below But for pistol and sure-set hoof. What! Is your nerve so shaken.? A man can die but once! [90] Who shirks the game for the chance-sent end Is a coward soul, or a dunce. — The turn of a loose-cinched saddle, The plunge of a keen-curved horn — Play down to-day — and to-morrow Who cares that we were born ! [91] THE YUCCA PALMS Gray pilgrims without pouch or staff, Or dust-stained robe, or cockle shell; Seek ye the path to some lost shrine Here in the desert grim as Hell? No arched cathedral dome bends down ; The earth is iron, the sky is brass ; 'Tis ages since these blistered sands Forgot the touch of flower and grass. Stern penance do ye for old wrongs Mayhap, or saintship seek from pain; With suppliant hands that never win The benison of cooling rain. In beggar rags like that wild throng That once in old Perugia stood, Ye bear your serried scourges high, A flagellante brotherhood. [92] IN THE BRACKEN. Scent of the pine on the hilltops. Rush of the mountain breeze, And long, deep slopes of bracken fern Like sun-lit emerald seas. Gray old rocks where the lizards hide And chattering chipmunks play; Where the brown quail leads her timorous brood Through the fronds that bend and sway. Home of the doe and her spotted fawns, (Shyest of woodland things.) Haunt of the hawks that dip and dive On circling, fearless winds. The skies bend down with a deeper blue Where the white clouds drift and hover; And the tall peaks drowse in the golden haze That dapples their forest cover. The needles whisper an endless song As the brown cones bend and nod: " O rest, O rest, with the bracken and pine In the strong, green hills of God." [93] ARIZONA In his message of December, 1905, President Roose- velt advised that Arizona and New Mexico be admitted to the Union as one state. In Arizona the opposition to this "joint-statehood" measure was bitter and deter- mined. No BEGGAR she in the mighty hall where her bay-crowned sisters wait, No empty-handed pleader for the right of a free-born State; No child, with a child's insistance, demanding a gilded toy ; But a fair-browed, queenly woman, strong to create or destroy. Wise for the need of the sons she has bred in the school where weaklings fail; Where cunning is less than manhood, and deeds, not words, avail: With the high, unswerving purpose that measures and overcomes; And the faith in the Farthest Vision that builded her hard- won homes. Link her, in her clean-proved fitness, in her right to stand alone, — Secure for whatever future in the strength that her past has won, — Link her, in her morning beauty, with an- other, however fair.'* And open your jealous portal and bid her enter there [94] With shackles on wrist and ankle and dust on her stately head, And her proud eyes dim with weeping? No! Bar your doors instead And seal them fast forever! But let her go her way — Uncrowned, if you will, but unshackled, to wait for a larger day. Ay! let her go bare-handed; bound with no grudging gift; Back to her own free spaces, where her rock- ribbed mountains lift Their walls like a sheltering fortress; back to her house and blood ; And we of her blood will go our way and reckon your judgment good. We will wait outside your sullen door till the stars you wear grow dim As the pale dawn-stars that swim and fade o'er our mighty Canon's rim; We will lift no hand for the bays ye wear nor covet your robes of state — But ah! By the skies above us all we will shame ye while we wait ! We will make ye the mould of an empire here in the land ye scorn ; While ye drowse, and dream in your well- housed ease that States at your nod are born. [95] Ye have blotted your own beginnings, and taught your sons to forget That ye did not spring fat-fed and old from the powers that bear and beget; But the while ye follow your smooth-made roads to a fireside safe of fears, Shall come a voice from a land still young to sing in your age-dulled ears The hero song of a strife as fine as your father's fathers knew. When they dared the rivers of unmapped wilds at the will of a bark canoe. The song of the deed in the doing; of the work still hot from the hand; Of the yoke of man laid friendly-wise on the neck of a tameless land. While your merchandise is weighing we will bit and bridle and rein The floods of the storm-rocked mountains and lead them down to the plain ; And the foam-ribbed, dark-hued waters, tired with that mighty race. Shall lie at the feet of palm and vine and know their appointed place; And out of that subtle union, desert with mountain flood. Shall be homes for a nation's choosing, where no home else had stood. [96] We will match the gold of your minting, with its mint-stamp dulled and marred By the blood and tears that have stained it, and the hands that have clutched too hard. With the gold that no man has lied for; the gold no woman has made The price of her truth and honor, plying a shameless trade: The clean, pure gold of the mountains, straight from the strong, dark earth; With no tang or taint upon it from the hour of its primal birth. The trick of the Money-changer, shifting his coins as he wills. Ye may keep — no Christ was bartered for the wealth of our lavish hills. " Yet we are a little people — too weak for the cares of state!" Let us go our way — when ye look again ye may find us, mayhap, too great. Cities we lack — and gutters where children snatch for bread: Numbers — and hordes of starvelings, toiling but never fed. Spare pains that would make us greater in the pattern that ye have set; We hold to the larger measure of the men that ye forget — [97] The men who from trackless forests and prai- ries lone and far, Hewed out the land where ye sit at ease and grudge us our fair-won star. There yet be men, my masters," — though the net that the trickster flings Lies wide on the land to its bitter shame, and his cunning parleyings Have deafened the ears of Justice, that was blind and slow of old: Yet Time, the last Great Judge, is not bought, or bribed, or sold; And Time and the Race shall judge us — not a league of trafficking men, Selling the trust of the people to barter it back again; Palming the lives of millions as a handful of easy coin — With a single heart to the narrow verge where Craft and State-craft join. [98] CAMP-FIRE TALES THE HASH-WRASTLER Being the story of the Hfe and death of the camp cook; as told by an old cow puncher. Of course the boss he carries some weight, tho' the owner's a figger-head; (Handy fer signin' checks an' sich — the Lord in His pity makes some folks rich ! Fortune at best's a skittish bitch as'U neither be drove er led; An' "A fool fer luck!" is a standing rule, which I reckon Solomon said.) There's some as growed on the own home range, an' some as was vented young; An' I've knowed buckaros as can't be beat that wrastled the Greaser tongue; An' there's now an' again a tenderfoot the cinches don't seem to rub; But the man that the outfit hitches to is the man that hustles the grub. It ain't no cinch in the summer time to tighten a hungry belt. When yer horse is lathered an' steamin' hot, an' ye think yer goin' to melt ; But that old chuck wagon's a bigger throne than the Czar of Rushy owns When you've punched a blizzard from dark to dark, an' the marrer chilled in yer bones. [101] Yer chaps is froze to the saddle skirts an' the froth on yer bridle white, An' the sigh ye let it ain't no bluff when that camp-fire heaves in sight ; An' ye see him grab np the coffee pot an' rattle the lid like sin ; An' holler away to beat the band: "Grub pile! Fa-all in! Fa-a-all in!" It's then that ye know yer friend o' friends, an' that wrastler gits his due — In cussin' an' sich — f er a haloed saint couldn't cook to suit the crew. It's : "Slushy, say, yer off yer base ; them biskits is dough inside. Did ye bile the critter that Noah milked, or only her horns an' hidcf^" " Stove .^^ " Oh, sure! A hole in the ground on the leeward side of the camp ; The end-gate dropped fer a kneadin' board, an' 1 "ne grease an' rag fer a lamp : But his