She marked 36 on the Yankton gauge,
Which I reckon you know is some of a stage,
An' she covered the bottoms here.
The "George" was hitched on the city bar
Close up by the railroad track.
When the row began we fixed her strong,
Rigged seven hawsers where two belong;
She'd 'a' taken an acre o' soil along
If she'd dragged in the grindin' pack.
But along one night the drift-ice stopped;
The flood run clear as June,
Fer the stuff had jammed in Hagin's Bend
An' choked the channel from end to end,
An' it fought an' screamed like a wild-cat, penned,
In the light o' the cold March moon.
Yeh see that p'int acrost the bar
With the riffle o' shoal below?
Well, that's where the widow o' old Buck Slack
Oncet had a claim an' a drift-wood shack.
Where she lived an' slaved with her young-un pack,
All which was some time ago.
Well, we on the "George" had tumbled out--
The roar o' the jam was wild--
When we heerd a cry through the shriekin' night,
An' there on the p'int, in the pale moonlight,
A-wavin' an' yellin' with all her might,
Stood Buck Slack's youngest child.
An' we knowed, without darin' to say the word,
They was tripped fer the Great Unknown,
Fer the gorge had slapped the current round
An' cut 'em off from the higher ground,
An' the hand that could save 'em from bein' drowned
Was the hand of God alone.
Then all at oncet we heerd a yell
An', down 'cross the willow bank,
A-layin' a course that was skeercely snug,
Came Jakey Dale with his whiskey jug,
As drunk as the mate of a log-raft tug,
An' a-swearin' somethin' rank.
"You rust-chawed fragments o' junk," sez he,
"Now what do you think you've found?
A-standin' 'round on this old bilge tank
Like a bunch o' frogs on a floatin' plank;
Be ye lookin' fer gold in yon cut-bank?"
An' then he heerd that sound.
As quick as the jump of a piston-rod
He was over the wheel-box guard,
An' before we could Agger on stoppin' him
He had slashed the falls from the long-boat's rim
An' was out past the slush o' the channel's brim,
A-pullin' quick an' hard.
He sidled his tub through that rippin' flume
While we stood on the "George" an' swore.
The boy was loony with raw-corn gin,
But he reckoned his course to the width of a pin,
Ran straight to the eddy an' clawed her in,
An' staggered himself ashore.
Now, stranger, I want to ask you, flat,
If a man with his head-piece right,
Would 'a' piled eight folks in that skiff's inside
Fer a half-mile pull through that mill-race tide
An' think to land safe at the end o' the ride?
Well, Jake Dale did, that night.
When he shoved her off from the gumbo p'int
She reeled like a sawyer snag,
Then the current caught her along the beam
An' she whirled around an' shot down stream
With the foam from her bow like a cloud o' steam,
As fast as a red-tail stag.
Good Lord, the fright in them children's cries!
It curdled a feller's blood,
Them river men ain't a prayerful race,
But that night more'n one sort o' hid his face
An' sent up a plea to the Throne o' Grace
To guide them through the flood.
An' then that gorge sent up a roar
That shook the solid ground;
The sort that splits yer ears in two
When a side-wheel packet drops a flue
An' blows six b'ilers amongst her crew,
An' cooks them that ain't drowned.
She was breakin' loose like an avalanche,
Slipped free on a mountain side.
Jake Dale turned 'round an' give one look
An' read the truth like a printed book,
Then bent to his oars till the keel-post shook,
An' pulled fer the "George's" side.
He jammed her bow through the buckin' tide
Till the painter floated free;
With blinded eyes an' drippin' skin
He fought fer the race he had set to win
Like a soldier fights, till the ice rolled in
An' ground against her lee.
But he'd got her up to ropin' range
An' we hauled her to the rail.
When he'd landed the last one, safe an' sound,
Jake follered, an' says, as he looked around,
"You fellers fetch out that jug you found,
I'm as dry as the Mormon Trail!"
Well, stranger, that there is the yarn o' Jake,
Jake Dale, o' the "Lucky George."
He wasn't no saint with a gilt-edged crown;
His language would shatter a church-steeple down;
He'd a thirst in his throat that nothin' could drown,
An' a fist like a blacksmith's forge.
But, all the same, he'd a Christian soul
If he hadn't the Christian creed,
An' a better heart, by a blame long shot,
Than some pious folks that brag a lot
On savin' their souls, but haven't got
No time fer their brother's need.
An' I reckon the Lord has found a place
In the Kingdom o' the Lamb
Fer the man that cast his own fears by
An' showed that he wasn't afeared to die
Fer the sake of a frightened baby's cry,
That night o' the big ice jam.
THE ENGINEER OF THE "GOLDEN HIND"
|SLIM JACK" BRITT, of the packet "Golden Hind,"
Runnin' the Missouri 'fore the railroads spoiled the trade,
Engineer, and a good one of his kind,
Claimed to have no feelin's; 'twas the only brag he made.
Come what might, he didn't give a hang;
Watch a Levee shootin' scrape and never turn a hair,
Stand and chew while some other boat went bang!
And blew her decks and b'ilers half a mile up in the air.
News of death didn't bother him,
Never showed no feelin's by word or sigh or frown.
Gabr'el's Trump wouldn't worried Slim,
He'd just hump his shoulders and screw a steam-valve down.
Well, one day, out from Omaha,
Way late in November and makin' our last run,
Blizzard come, quick and thick and raw,
Slim was at the engines when the storm begun.
Boat chuck full, passengers and freight,
Had to get 'em somewhere 'fore the freeze-up brought us to,
So we run, crowdin' on the gait
And hopin' that a blind snag wouldn't rip our bottom through.
All at once a woman screamed aloud--
"Men, the boat's on fire! For God's sake, run ashore!"
Then, of course, panic in the crowd,
Shrieks and groans and curses and the fire's growin' roar.
Down below, 'round the fires there
Crew all took the fever, run up front and prayed--
All but Slim. He didn't seem to care;
Didn't have no feelin's and so he stayed.
Pilot yelled through the speakin' tube,--
"Can you keep the paddles goin' while I make a landin', Jack?"
"Blamed hot here, but I'll mind yer signals, Rube;
I ain't got no feelin's," was all Slim hollered back.
Through the roof, down the fire came
While he worked his levers, blisterin' like tar,
Blind and black, stickin' to the game
Till she'd made her landin', broad against the bar.
Someone then jumped across the side,
Dragged him from the fire and toted him ashore.
Might as well just have let it slide;
Slim was done with engines for good and evermore.
But he spoke, just 'fore he got through,
Lookin' at the people in a sort o' mild surprise--
"Don't thank me, and don't be sorry, too--
I ain't got no feelin's," said Slim, and closed his eyes.
[Illustration: 107]
THE "PAULINE"
|A MISSOURI tramp was the boat "Pauline"
An' she ran in '78;
She was warped in the hull an' broad o' beam,
An' her engines sizzled with wastin' steam,
An' a three-mile jog against the stream
Was her average runnin' gait.
Sing ho! fer the rickety "Pauline" maid,
The rottenest raft in the Bismarck trade,
An' her captain an' her mate.
The new "North Queen" come up in June,
Fresh launched from the Saint Joe ways,
As speedy a craft as the river'd float--
She could buck the bends like a big-horn goat--
An' she hauled astern o' that "Pauline" boat
On one o' them nice spring days.
Sing ho! fer the "Pauline," puffin' hard,
With her captain up on the starboard guard,
A-watchin' the "North Queen" raise.
The "Queen," she drew to the "Pauline's" wheel
An' her captain come a-bow;
"I'll give yeh three miles the lead," says he,
"An' beat yeh at that into Old Santee."
"Come on," says the "Pauline's" chief, "an' see!
I'm a-waitin' fer yeh now."
Sing ho! fer the captains, grim an' white
With the smothered hate of an old-time fight
An' the chance fer a new-time row.
So the sassy "Queen" strung out behind
An' let the distance spread,
Till the "Pauline" headed Ackley's Bend
An' herself come in at the lower end;
Then her slow-bell speed begun to mend
Fer the space that the old boat led.
Sing ho! fer the clerks an' the engineers
A-swabbin' the grease on the runnin' gears
An' settin' the stroke ahead.
Puff-puff! they went by the flat sand-bars,
Chug-chug! where the currents spun,
An' the "Pauline's" stokers were not to blame
Fer her tall, black stacks were spoutin' flame,
But the "Queen" crawled up on her, just the same,
Two miles to the "Pauline's" one.
Sing ho! fer the steam-chest's poundin' cough,
A-shakin' the nuts o' the guy-rods off
To the beat o' the piston's run.
The "Queen" pulled up on the old boat's beam
At the mouth o' Chouteau Creek,
An' the "Pauline's" captain stamped an' swore,
Fer the wood bulged out o' the furnace door,
An' the steam-gauge hissed with the load it bore,
But she couldn't do the trick.
Sing ho! fer the pilot at the wheel
A-shavin' the choals on a twelve-inch keel,
Enough to scare yeh sick.
The "Queen" was doin' her level best
An' she wasn't leadin' far--
Fer the "Pauline" stuck like a barber's leech--
But she let her siren whistle screech
When she led the way into Dodson's Reach,
Three miles from Santee Bar.
Sing ho! fer the "Pauline's" roustabout
A-rollin' the Bismarck cargo out,
Big barrels o' black pine tar.
The "Pauline's" chief was a sight to see
As he stood on the swingin' stage.
"I'll beat that pop-eyed levee-rat
If he banks his fires with bacon fat;
Pile in that tar an' let her scat
An' never mind the gauge!"
Sing ho! fer the boilers singein' red
An' the black smoke vomitin' overhead
From the furnace' flamin' rage.
An' she gained, that rattle-trap mud-scow did,
While her wake got white with spray,
An' forty rods from the landin'-plank
Her bow was a-beam o' the "North Queen's" flank
An' her pilot rushin' her fer the bank
To block the "North Queen's" way.
Sing ho! fer the boilers' burstin' roar
As they hurl them loose from the splittin' floor,
An' tear the decks away.
But the captain bold of the ex-"Pauline,"
He didn't stop a bit,
Fer he flew with the wreckage through the air,
An' fell on the landin', fair an' square,
An' the "Queen" run in an' found him there,
R'ared up from where he'd lit.
An' he yelled: "You rouster, I've won the race!
Go git a boat that can keep my pace,
Yer 'North Queen' doesn't fit!"
AFTERGLOW
(On the Missouri)
|TWILIGHT on the river, summer everywhere,
Prairie flowers perfuming the warm June air,
Breezes stirring softly on the high bluff's crest
Where stand a lad and maiden, looking toward the West.
Just a lad and maiden, standing, hand in hand,
While the lights are fading from the sunset's fairyland,
While on butte and buttress dies the crimson afterglow
And the mists creep upward from the river far below.
Down there in the valley house lights twinkle out,
Homeward-wending cattle low, laughing children shout,
While those two stand dreaming of another home to be,
Close beside the river, slipping swiftly toward the sea.
O, thou broad, strong river, rolling from the North,
Dost thou, too, see visions, from the centuries spun forth?
See a lad and maiden in some summer long ago
Gazing from the hilltop on the shadowed vale below?
Dusky, slender lovers, clasping hand in hand
While the tepee fires flicker down there on the strand--
Wild, unconquered children of the forest and the plain,
Dreaming, softly dreaming that same old dream again!
River of the Northland, in thy banks of living green,
Many are the visions that thy changing tides have seen,
Yet they came and vanished with Time's ceaseless onward flow,
Grew and bloomed and faded like the sunset's afterglow.
Only this was changeless in the centuries agone,
Only this will change not as the countless years speed on;
Ever to the hilltop, looking westward o'er the land
Will come some lad and maiden, dreaming, hand in hand;
In the twilight dreaming of a happy home to be
Beside thy restless waters, sweeping silent toward the sea,
Ever in the gloaming while time shall ebb and flow
Love will build its castles in the crimson afterglow.