The Search
1
In the West, where twilight glories
Paint with blood each sky-line cloud,
While the virgin rolling prairie
Slowly dons her evening shroud;
While the killdeer plover settles
From its quick and noisy flight;
While the prairie cock is blowing
Warning of the coming night—
There against the fiery background
Where the day and night have met,
Move three disappearing figures,
Outlined sharp in silhouette.
Zeb and Si and Bill, the lover,
Chafing under each delay,
Pass below the red horizon,
Toward the river trail away.
2
Far across the upland prairie
To the valley-land below,
Where the tall and tangled joint-grass
Makes the horses pant and blow,
There the silent Solomon River
Reaching westward to its source,
With its fringe of sombre timber
Guides the lover on his course.
All the night he keeps his saddle,
Urging Zeb and Simon on,
Till the trail clears up before him
In the gray of early dawn.
Where it turns in towards the river,
Arched above with vine-growth rank,
He, dismounting, ties the horses
Near the steep and treacherous bank.
3
More than light and shade and landscape
Meet the plainsman’s searching look,
For the paths that lie before him
Are the pages of his book.
Stooping down and reading slowly,
Noting every trace around,
Of the travel gone before him,
Every mark upon the ground,
Down the winding, deep-cut roadway
Furrowed out by grinding tire,
Where the ruts lead to the water,
In the half-dried plastic mire,
He beholds the telltale marking
Of an odd-shaped band of steel,
Welded to secure the fellies
Of old MacIntyre’s wheel.
4
High above the wind is moaning
In a lonely, fretful mood,
Through the lofty spreading branches
Of the elm and cottonwood.
Where the willows hide the fordway
With their fringe of lighter green,
Is the dam, decayed and broken,
Where the beavers once have been.
On the sycamore bent o’er it,
With its gleaming trunk of white,
Sits the barred owl, idly blinking
At the early morning’s light,
While, within its spacious hollow,
Where the rotting heart had clung
Till removed by age and fire,
Sleeps the wild cat with her young.
5
Plunging through the sluggish water,
Scarcely halting for a drink,
Toiling through the sticky quagmire,
They attain the farther brink.
Here the trail leads to the westward,—
Once the redman’s wild domain;
Now the shallow rutted highway
Of the settler’s wagon train.
Here and there along the edges,
Paths work through the waving grass,
Where at night from bluff to river,
Sneaking coyotes find a pass.
Here the meadow lark sings gaily
As she leaves her hidden nest,
While the sun of early morning
Double-tints her orange breast.
6
Up this broad and fertile valley,
Tracing all its winding ways,
Plodding on with dogged patience
Through a score of weary days,
Camping in the lonely timber,
Sleeping on the scorching plain,
Bearing heat and thirst and hunger,
Sore fatigue and wind and rain—
Halting only when the telltale
Mark was missing in the track;
Only when he called a greeting,
As he passed some settler’s shack;
Till the valley and its timber
Vanished, where the rolling sward
Of the westward-sweeping prairie
Marks the trail ’cross Mingo’s ford.
7
Here for hours he searched the crossing
And the wheel-ruts leading on
To the north, a full day’s journey,
But the guiding mark was gone.
Not a vestige here remaining
Of the sign that could be told,
For old Mac had traveled swiftly
And the trail was mixed and old.
Two whole days Bill searched and waited,
Hoping for some other clew,
Weighing questions of direction,
Undecided what to do.
Till, one night, while cooking supper
By the camp-fire’s genial glow,
He was startled by a stranger’s
Sudden presence and “Hello!”
8
Tall of stature, dark of visage,
By the wind well dried and tanned,
Clad in “shaps” and spurs that jingled,
With a bull whip in his hand.
Close behind him in the shadows,
Eyes aglow with red and green,
Stood a blazed-face Texas pony,
Ewe-necked, cat-hammed, wild, and mean.
“Hello, stranger! glad to see you,
Got my cattle fixed for night;
Just got through, and riding round ’em,
‘Cross the bluff, I saw your light.
No, thanks, pardner, had my supper;
Seems your fire is short o’ wood;
I just thought I’d see who’s camped here—
Gee! that bacon does smell good!”
9
When the frugal meal was over,
When the pipes were filled and lit,
And the cowboy ceased his stories
Weak in moral, rank in wit,
Billy plied him long with questions,
Wording each with thought and care,
Lest his zeal for information
Should reveal his mission there.
“Tell me who you’ve seen go by here,
Just within the last few days;
What they had for teams and outfits;
How the country round here lays.
Have you seen a prairie schooner—
Old style freighter—pass this way?
Both wheel hosses white-nosed sorrels,
Lead team of a dun and gray?”
10
“I remember some such outfit,
If I’ve got your idee right.
Think they camped a mile below here
Week ago last Thursday night.
Pulled in sometime ’long ’bout sundown,
Turned their stock in yonder draw,
But an oldish sort of fellow
Was the only one I saw;
Rode a speckled chestnut pony
With a white star in his face;
Asked some questions ’bout the country,
’Bout the proper crossing-place.
Pulled out sometime long ’fore daylight.
Didn’t see them when they passed,
But from all the indications
They was trav’ling pretty fast.
11
“Crossed right here where we are settin’,
Saw their trail that very day;
Struck plumb north, and by my reck’nin’
Towards the north they’ll likely stay.
North of here, by my experience,
He’ll find grass that’s mighty fine.
Chances are that he’ll keep goin’
Till he strikes Nebraska’s line.
It was just the next day after
That my cattle scattered so;
Some strayed off ’way south to Jimson’s,
One bunch in the bend below.
That’s the day I met that feller
(Eyes so black he couldn’t see)
Who kept pumpin’ me with questions
Like you’ve just been askin’ me.
12
“Asked about that prairie schooner,
Said that they was friends of hisn,
Like to wore me plumb to frazzles
With his everlasting quiz’n.
Rode a piebald, knock-kneed broncho;
Coat was battered, ripped, and torn;
He was yaller, long, and g’anted
Like a steer with holler horn.
An’ you oughter seen his breeches!
He must sure be shy on sense;
Why, they looked like he’d been riding
On a bucking barb wire fence.
You won’t meet him, ’cause I saw him
Coming back across this way,
Going eastward where he come from;
Took the back trail yesterday.
13
“Said he’d found the old man’s outfit
Moving westward on North Fork.
Can’t remember all he told me,
For he runs a heap to talk.
Said he’d found out what he wanted;
Said he ‘had a plan or two,
And the folks that knowed Jim Johnson,
Knowed that he would put ’em through.’
Then there’s others took the west trail;
They got that way huntin’ range—
Funny how folks when they come here
Get to itchin’ for a change!
I’ve been stayin’ too confinin’;
Never left this herd but once.
I’m the oldest puncher round here,—
Been here over fourteen months.”
14
Long before the sun had risen,
While the night mist’s ghostly veil
Hid from view the sloughs and hollows,
Billy took the northern trail.
Through the sunflowers in the low land,
Plodding over sandstone knolls,
Winding through the level stretches
Dotted thick with treacherous holes
Where the prairie dogs sat chattering,
Bolt upright upon their mounds,
While the ground owls sought their burrows,
Startled by the warning sounds;
Stumbling into buffalo wallows,
Dug out in an earlier day
By the halting herds that rested,
Rolled and bellowed in their play.
15
Now and then the sheltered hillside
Waved its varicolored flowers
As a greeting to the trav’ler,
Solace to the toilsome hours.
Old Jack Rabbit hopped before him,
Then sat up, to watch him pass,
Dusky horned-toads scurried nimbly
Through the withered buffalo grass.
Here and there the buzzing rattler
Whirred a warning, head alert,
Then retreated from the snapping,
Stinging strokes of Billy’s quirt.
Day by day the wild breeze flying,
With’ring in its scorching heat,
Hummed a tune to labored beating
Of the plodding horses’ feet.
16
Day by day this panorama
Passing slowly, dully by,
With the sun’s brass disc high gleaming
From a white and cloudless sky,
Sometimes drew fantastic pictures.
Many a strange and gruesome sign—
Phantom trees and fairy castles—
Blurred the far horizon line.
Then they’d vanish like the fancies
Of a fever-smitten brain,
And returning, changed in outline,
Elsewhere on the mighty plain
Would allure the eyesore trav’ler
Till the very sky above
Seemed to mock with vague mirages
Every surety of love.
17
When each weary day was over,
Halting near some watering-place,
Bill unpacked his meager outfit,
Turned the horses loose to graze,
Baked his varicolored dough-bread,
On a fire of cattle chips;
Coffee made of green-scummed water,
Nectar to his thirsty lips.
On the ground he spread his blanket
And reclining there alone,
Heard the swiftly sweeping breezes
Sing in dreary monotone
Strange wild anthems, weird and lonesome,
Like lost spirits floating by,
While afar in broken measure
Swelled the coyotes’ yelping cry.
18
All the varied information
Gathered from the few he passed—
Some from herders, some from stragglers
Gave the missing clew at last
As to where old Mac was heading;
For that telltale band of steel
Stamped along the endless roadway
Printed by the turning wheel,
Pressed its image on the memory
Of the settlers coming back,
Who, when questioned by the searcher,
Told him that the telltale track
Had begun to veer to westward
After crossing by the way
Leading up the North Platte River,
Where the sand wastes stretch away.
19
As he crossed this barren prairie’s
Sweeping waste of poverty,
Billy paused beside the cripple
Of a wind-torn twisted tree,
Standing there, marooned forever,
Where its hapless seed had blown,
Miles on miles from forest neighbor,
Struggling out its life alone.
Here he stopped, with head uncovered,
Conscious of a strange appeal,
Yielding to the voiceless longing
Human hearts are bound to feel
When their lot is isolation,
And a field of sterile soil
Dwarfs and twists the struggling spirit
As the body bends with toil.
20
Here, that subtle, silent craving,
Which with life will never end,
Of the lonesome and the needy
For the comfort of a friend,
Drew the trav’ler to this tree waif,
And he spread his outfit near,
And they held that sacred converse
Which the soul alone can hear.
While the horses browsed the sage brush,
And the sun withdrew his light,
And the moon in mournful splendor
Ushered in the lonely night,
He lay down beneath the branches,
Wrapped in musings strange and deep—
Thoughts that bore him off in silence
O’er the placid sea of sleep.
21
In his dreams he saw a monarch
Decked in sumptuous array,
Seated on a throne of glory
Bearing royal title, Day.
Then some mighty power transcendent,
Thrust him from his gorgeous throne,
Turning all the realm to darkness,
And the world was left alone.
As the shades of gloom were spreading,
By strange flashing threads of light
He beheld in dim-drawn outline,
On the background of the night,
Phantom horse and girlish rider,
Speeding on in reckless race,
Till she turned directly toward him
And he saw her fearless face!
22
With the journey’s slow progression
Slipped away the summer days,
Merging with the sleepy beauty
Of the lazy autumn haze;
And the frosts and drought combining
Waged relentless battle there,
Withering up the scanty ranges,
Leaving all the country bare.
When he entered Colorado,
Following still the barren plain
Where for months the mocking heavens
Never spared a drop of rain,
Faithful Simon, weak and starving,
Following feebly in the track
Pulled upon his straining halter,
Groaned and fell beneath his pack.
23
Vain were all the kind entreaties,
Vain the simple nursing done
To relieve his palsied weakness—
Poor old Simon’s course was run.
Billy spent the night beside him,
But with next day’s early dawn,
With the east’s first flush of scarlet,
Simon’s faithful soul passed on.
Then, with hands outstretched before him,
Half remembering what was said
When a child he saw the sexton
Sprinkle earth upon the dead—
“Dust to dust, and then to ashes—
I forget the other part—
I can’t say the words I want to,
I can’t think—all’s in my heart.
24
“Over twenty years, old pardner,
We have been companions true;
You have always kept your end up
In the hardships we’ve gone through.
If we’d stayed, and I had never
Seen her face or touched her hand,
We should still have been contented,
On our little piece of land.
This strange spell won’t let me falter,
Though the chasing never ends;
Seems that nothing ever’ll stop it,
Sickness, death, or loss of friends.
Where this love will drive a fellow,
I ain’t wise enough to tell;
Sometimes think it leads to heaven
By a trail that runs through hell.”
25
Weeks thereafter, plodding northward
Crossing over Lodge Pole creek,
Threading Colorado’s stretches—
Sandy deserts wild and bleak—
Where the sun wars on the living,
Struggling ’neath his blinding light,
Then resigns his work of ravage
To the chilling frosts of night;
Where the bleaching bones of horses
Here and there bestrew the plains,
Telling many a ghastly story
Of misguided settlers’ trains—
Where the early frontier ranger
Marked the first trail to Cheyenne,
Billy, following its wand’rings,
Found the missing mark again.
26
Then the labored pace grew faster
As he passed each camping place,
Marking well the lessening distance
In the long-contested race.
Riding through Wyoming’s foothills,
With their rugged summit lines
Stretched across the clear horizon,
Fringed with pointed spruce and pines,
He beheld, one early morning,
Rising slowly to the sky,
Smoke—the thin and gauzy column
Of a camp fire built close by;
And, on looking down the valley
With exultant, ringing cheer,
He beheld the prairie schooner
And the MacIntyres near.
27
On an open spot of grass land
Gilded by the rising sun,
Sloping sharply to the crevice
Where the mountain waters run,
Ike, reclining, watched the horses,
Now increased to quite a band,
While above him, in the timber,
Brother Bill, with gun in hand,
Held it poised in sudden wonder,
Half in attitude to shoot,
As he saw the coming rider,
Heard his loudly yelled salute.
Near an old abandoned cabin,
Huddled by the breakfast fire,
Resting calm in fancied safety
Sat the elder MacIntyre.
28
“You! Why, Billy, where d’you come from?
What new game you playing now?
If you’re out on posse business
By the gods, jest start your row!
What you saying? You are friendly?
Wal, I’m glad to hear it’s so;
And I s’pose you made the journey
Way out here to let me know!
Oh! you’re talking ’bout our Nancy!
Now I just begin to see.
Set down, Billy; you are askin’
Something that sure puzzles me.
Nancy ain’t like other women—
What I say may hit you queer,
But it’s jest as well to tell you—
That there girl—she isn’t here.
29
“Don’t stampede your words, now, Billy.
Slow ’em down and let ’em walk.
Lord a’mighty, man! keep quiet!
Never heard such crazy talk!
Where’s the girl? Wal, let me tell you—
T’aint no use to take on so—
Where is Nancy? P’r’aps in heaven;
I can’t tell yer,—I don’t know.
When we left last spring from Kansas,
Travelin’ mostly in the night,
We was chased up by a posse;
Fourth day out we had a fight.
We had jest unhitched the hosses,
Making camp at Old Man’s Creek—
Gimme some o’ that tobacker,
I’ve been out for more’n a week.
30
“We had jest unhitched the hosses,
Nance was riding Kelly’s mare,
When we heard them all a-comin’—
They had seen us pull in there.
Nancy said,’ I’ll hold ’em, daddie,
Get the outfit over here,
And I’ll trail you in the mornin’;
I will see they don’t get near.’
It was in that heavy timber—
Growing dark and spittin’ rain—
Where the creek runs to the eastward,
Makes that loop, and back again.
We was in a reg’lar pocket;
Creek banks made a kind of bluff
All around us, so it looked like
We was trapped there, sure enough.
31
“Wal, we had a time in movin’;
Things got mixed up in the rush;
Lead team broke a piece of harness
Pulling through the underbrush.
Then the wagon turned clean over,
But we drug her plumb across,
Hitched with ropes and other fixin’s,
Usin’ every extra hoss.
Wal, you never heard such shootin’,
Bullets whizzin’ everywhere;
Pumped ’em on us till it sounded
Like they had an army there.
Nancy stayed and cracked it to ’em,
Kind o’ circlin’ round and round;
I could tell the two six-shooters
She was usin’, by the sound.
32
“You can bet we did some trav’lin’
All that night and all next day;
I could still a-hear the shootin’
After we was miles away.
I supposed we’d see the girl come
Ridin’ up to us ’fore long,
That is—I was jest a-thinkin’—
If there wasn’t somethin’ wrong.
But, in spite of all our lookin’,
Sometimes slackin’ up our gait,
Always thinkin’ we should see her
Every time we’d stop and wait.
We have never seen her, Billy,
And I own I’m balked a bit,
Fur I know that she’s a critter
Made of nothin’ else but grit.
33
“I wish I could go and find her,
But ’twould be too hot for me;
Long before I got back that fur
I’d be strung up to a tree.
So I’ve been a kind o’ thinkin’,
Since I see what’s both’rin’ you,
’Bout a thing—I hate to ask it—
That I’d like for you to do.
I don’t think that girl has ever—
It sure hurts me, what I say—
But I’m sure that in the scrimmage
Nancy never got away.
Billy, you go back and find her;
You are all I’ve got to send,
You can sort o’ fix things decent,
Where she is—in Old Man’s Bend.”