Jim Waring of Sonora-Town

Jim Waring of Sonora-Town or, Tang of Life

By HENRY HERBERT KNIBBS

Author of Overland Red, etc.

Illustrations By

E. Boyd Smith

August 1918

To
Robert Frothingham

Waring of Sonora-Town

The heat acrost the desert was a-swimmin’ in the sun,
  When Waring of Sonora-Town,
  Jim Waring of Sonora-Town,
From Salvador come ridin’ down, a-rollin’ of his gun.

He was singin’ low and easy to his pony’s steady feet,
  But his eye was live and driftin’
  Round the scenery and siftin’
All the crawlin’ shadows shiftin’ in the tremblin’ gray mesquite.

Eyes was watchin’ from a hollow where a outlaw Chola lay;
  Two black, snaky eyes a-yearnin’
  For Jim’s hoss to make the turnin’,
Then to send a bullet burnin’ through his back—the Chola way.

And Jim Waring’s gaze, a-rovin’ round the desert as he rode,
  Settled quick—without him seemin’
  To get wise and quit his dreamin’—
On a shiny ring a-gleamin’ where no ring had ever growed.

The lightnin’ don’t give warnin’; just a lick and she is through;
  Waring set his gun to smokin’
  Playful like, like he was jokin’,
And—a Chola lay a-chokin’ … and a buzzard cut the blue.