Selections from Ballads of a Cheechako by Robert W. Service

1 01 - To the Man of the High North 1:48

2 02 - Men of the High North 3:31

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing. Islands of opal float on silver seas. Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing. Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. Ringed all around us, the proud peaks are glowing. Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwams the sky. Far, far below us, the big Yukon flowing, like threaded quicksilver gleams to the eye. Men of the high north, you who have known it, you in whose hearts its splendors have abode. Can you renounce it? Can you disown it? Can you forget it, its glory, its goad? Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it, Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot? Only remain, the guerdon and gain of it, Zest of the foray, and God how you fought. You who have made good, you foreign faring, you money magic to far lands has world, Can you forget those days of vast daring?

There with your soul on the top of the world? Nights when no peril could keep you awake on, Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow? Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon, Fried at the camp-fire at forty below? Can you remember your huskies all going, Barking with joy, and their brushes in air? You in your parka? Glad-eyed and glowing. Monarch, your subjects, the wolf and the bear. Monarch, your kingdom, unravished and gleaming. Mountains, your throne, and a river, your car. Crash of a bull-moose, to rouse you from dreaming. Forest, your couch, and your candle a star. You, who this faint day the high north is luring, unto her vastness, Taintlessly sweet. You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring, dreadless in danger, and dire in defeat, honor the high North, ever and ever, whether she crown you or whether she slay.

Suffer her fury, cherish and love her. He who would rule, he must learn to obey. Men of the high north, fierce mountains love you. Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast. See, the austere sky, pensive above you, dons all her jewels to smile on your rest. Children of freedom, scornful of frontiers, we who are weaklings honor your worth. Lords of the wilderness, princes of pioneers, Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.

3 03 - The Ballad of the Northern Lights 17:19

The Ballad of the Northern Lights One of the down and out, that's me. Stare at me well, eh, stare. Stare and shrink. Say, wouldn't you think that I was a millionaire? Look at my face. It's crimped and gouged, one of them death-mask things. Don't seem the sort of man, do I? As might be the pal of kings? Slouching along in smelly rags, a bleary-eyed no-good bum, a knight of the hollow needle-pard spewed from the sodden slum? Look at me all over, from head to foot. How much would you think I was worth? A dollar? A dime? A nickel? Why, I'm the wealthiest man on earth. No? Don't you think that I'm off my bass? You'll sing a different tune? If only you'll let me spin my yarn. Come over to this saloon.

Wet my throat. It's dry as chalk, and seeing as how it's you, I'll tell the tale of a northern trail, and so help me God it's true. I'll tell of the howling wilderness, and the haggard arctic heights, of a reckless vow that I made, and how I staked the northern lights. Remember the year of the big stampede, and the trail of ninety-eight, when the eyes of the world were turned to the north, and the hearts of men elate? Hearts of the old dare-devil breed, thrilled at a wondrous strike, And to every man who could hold a pan came the message, Up and hike. Well, I was there with the best of them, and I knew I would not fail. You wouldn't believe it to see me now, but wait till you've heard my tale.

You've read of the Trail of Ninety-eight, but it's woe no man may tell. It was all of a piece and a whole yard wide, and the name of the brand was Hell. We heard the call, and we staked our all. We were plungers playing blind, and no man cared how his neighbor fared, and no man looked behind. For a ruthless greed was born of need, and the weakling went to the wall, and a curse might avail where a prayer would fail, and the godlust crazed us all. Bold were we, and they called us three the unholy Trinity. There was Ol Olsen, and the Sailor Swede, and the Dago Kid, and me. We were the discards of the pack, the forloopers of unrest, reckless spirits of fierce revolt, in the ferment of the West. We were bound to win, and we revelled in the hardships of the way.

We staked our ground, and our hopes were crowned, and we hoisted out the pay. We were rich in a day beyond our dreams. It was gold from the grass-roots down. But we weren't used to such sudden wealth, and there was the siren town. We were crude and careless frontiersmen, with much in us of the beast. We could bear the famine worthily, but we lost our heads at the feast. The town looked mighty bright to us, with a bunch of dust to spend, and nothing was half too good them days, and everyone was our friend. Whining meant more than mining, then, and life was a dizzy whirl, gambling and dropping chunks of gold down the neck of a dance-hall girl. Till we went clean mad, it seems to me, and we squandered our last poke.

And we sold our claim, and we found ourselves one bitter morning broke. The Dago Kid, he dreamed a dream of his mother's aunt who died. In the dawn light dim, she came to him, and she stood by his bedside, and she said, Go forth, to the highest north, till a lonely trail ye find. Follow it far, and trust your star, and fortune will be kind. But I jeered at him, and then there came the sailor Swede to me, and he said, I dreamed of my sister's son, who croaked at the age of three. From the herded dead he sneaked and said, Seek you an arctic trail, Tis pale and grim by the polar rim, but seek and you shall not fail. And lo, that night I too did dream, Of my mother's sister's son. And he said to me, by the Arctic Sea, there's a treasure to be won.

Follow and follow a lone moose trail till you come to a valley grim, on the slope of the lonely watershed that borders the polar brim. Then I woke my pals, and soft we swore by the mystic silver flail. T'was the hand of fate, and tomorrow straight. We would seek the lone moose trail. We watched the groaning ice wrench free, crash on with a hollow din. Men of the wilderness were we, freed from the taint of sin. The mighty river snatched us up, and bore us swift along. The days were bright, and the morning light was sweet with jewelled song. We poled and lined up nameless streams, Portaged over hill and plain, We burnt our boat to save the nails, And built our boat again. We guessed and groped, North, ever north, With many a twist and turn.

We saw ablaze in the deathless days The splendid sunsets burn. O'er soundless lakes, Where the grayling makes A rush at the clumsy fly, By bluffs so steep That the hard-hit sheep falls sheer from out the sky. By lilied pools, where the bull moose cools and wallows in huge content. By rocky lairs, where the pig-eyed bears peered at our tiny tent. Through the black canyon's angry foam we hurled to dreamy bars, and round in a ring the dog-nosed peaks bayed to the mocking stars. Spring and summer and autumn went, the sky had a tallow gleam, yet north, ever north we pressed, to the land of our golden dream. So we came at last to a tundra vast, and dark and grim and lone, and there was the little Lone Moose Trail, and we knew it for our own.

By Muskeg Hollow and Nigger Head it wandered endlessly, Sorry of heart and sore of feet, weary men were we. The short-lived sun had a leaden glare, and the darkness came too soon, and stationed there with a solemn stare was the pinched, anemic moon. Silence and silvern solitude till it made you dumbly shrink, and you thought to hear with an outward ear the things you thought to think. Oh, it was wild and weird and wan, and ever in Campo Nights we would watch and watch the silver dance of the mystic northern lights. And soft they danced from the polar sky, and swept in primrose haze, and swift they pranced with their silver feet, and pierced with a blinding blaze. They danced a cortillion in the sky, they were rose and silver shod, It was not meant for the eyes of man.

"'Twas a sight for the eyes of God. It made us mad, and strange and sad, and the gold whereof we dreamed was all forgot, and our only thought was of the lights that gleamed.

Oh, the tundra sponge it was golden brown, and some was bright blood-red, and the reindeer moss gleamed here and there, Like the tombstones of the dead, and in and out and round about the little trail ran clear, and we hated it with a deadly hate, and we feared with a deadly fear. And the skies of night were alive with light, with a throbbing thrilling flame, amber and rose and violet, opal and gold it came. It swept the sky like a giant scythe. It quivered back to a wedge. Argently bright, it cleft the night with a wavy golden edge. Pennants of silver waved and streamed, lazy banners unfurled. Sudden splendors of sabres gleamed. Lightning javelins were hurled. There, in our awe, we crouched and saw, with our wild, uplifted eyes.

Charge and retire the hosts of fire in the battlefield of the skies. But all things came to an end at last, and the muskeg melted away, and, frowning down to bar our path, a muddle of mountains lay. And a gorge sheered up in granite walls, and the moose-trail crept betwixt. "'Twas as if the earth had gaped too far, and her stony jaws were fixed. Then the winter fell with a sodden swoop, and the heavy clouds sagged low, and the earth and sky were blotted out in a whirl of driving snow. We were climbing up a glacier in the neck of a mountain pass, when the Dago Kid slipped down and fell into a deep crevasse. When we got him out, one leg hung limp. And his brow was wreathed in pain. And he says, "'Tis badly broken, boys.

I'll never walk again." It's death for all if you linger here, and that's no cursed lie. Go on, go on while the trail is good, and leave me down to die. He raved and swore, but we tended him with our uncouth clumsy care. The camp-fire gleamed, And he gazed and dreamed, with a fixed and curious stare. Then all at once he grabbed my gun, and he put it to his head, and he said, "'I'll fix it for you, boys.' Them are the words he said." So we sewed him up in a canvas sack, and we slung him to a tree, and the stars like needles stabbed our eyes, and woeful men were we. And on we went on our woeful way, wrapped in a daze of dream, and the northern lights in the crystal nights came forth with a mystic gleam.

They danced and they danced the devil dance over the naked snow, and soft they rolled like a tide upshould with a ceaseless ebb and flow. They rippled green with a wondrous sheen, they fluttered out like a fan, They spread with a blaze of rose-pink rays, never yet seen of man. They writhed like a brood of angry snakes, hissing in sulphur pale. Then swift they changed to a dragon vast, lashing a cloven tail. It seemed to us, as we gazed aloft with an everlasting stare, the sky was a pit of bale and dread, and a monster revelled there. We climbed the rise of a hog-back range that was desolate and drear, when the sailor Swede had a crazy fit, and he got to talking queer. He talked of his home in Oregon, and the peach-trees all in bloom, and the fern head-high, and the topaz sky, and the forest scented gloom.

He talked of the sins of his misspent life, and then he seemed to brood, And I watched him there like a fox a-hair, for I knew it was not good. And sure enough, in the dim dawn light, I missed him from the tent, and a fresh trail broke through the crested snow, and I knew not where it went. But I followed it o'er the seamless waste, and I found him at shut of day, naked there as a newborn babe, so I left him where he lay. Day after day was sinister, and I fought fierce-eyed despair, and I clung to life, and I struggled on. I knew not why, nor where. I packed my grub in short relays, and I cowered down in my tent, and the world around was purged of sound, like a frozen continent. Day after day was dark as death, but ever, ever at nights, With a brilliancy that grew and grew, blazed up the northern lights.

They rolled around with a soundless sound, like softly bruised silk. They poured into the bowl of the sky with the gentle flow of milk. In eager, pulsing violet, their wheeling chariots came, or they poised above the polar rim, like a coronal of flame. From the depths of darkness, fathomless, their lancing rays were hurled, like the all-combining searchlights of the navies of the world. There, on the roof-pole of the world, as one bewitched, I gazed, and howled and grovelled like a beast as the awful splendors blazed. My eyes were seared, yet thralled I peered through the parka hood, nigh blind, But I staggered on to the lights that shone, and I never looked behind. There is a mountain, round and low, that lies by the polar rim, and I climbed its height in a whirl of light, and I peered o'er the jagged brim, and there, in a crater deep and vast, ungained, unguessed of man, the mystery of the arctic world was flashed into my ken.

For there these poor dim eyes of mine beheld the sight of sights, that hollow ring was the source and spring of the mystic northern lights. Then I staked that place from crown to base, and I hit the homeward trail. Ah, God, it was good, though my eyes were blurred, and I crawled like a sickly snail. In that vast white world Where the silent sky communes with the silent snow. In hunger and cold and misery I wandered to and fro. But the Lord took pity on my pain, and he led me to the sea. And some ice-bound whalers heard my moan, and they fed and sheltered me. They fed the feeble scarecrow thing that stumbled out of the wild with the ravaged face of a mask of death, And the wandering wits of a child, a craven, cowering bag of bones that once had been a man, they tended me and brought me back to the world, and here I am.

Some say that the northern lights are the glare of the Arctic ice and snow, and some that it's electricity, and nobody seems to know. But I'll tell you now, and if I lie, may my lips be stricken dumb. It's mine, a mine of the precious stuff that men call radium. It's a million dollars a pound, they say, and there's tons and tons in sight. You can see it gleam in a golden stream in the solitudes of night. And it's mine, all mine, and say, if you have a hundred plunks to spare, I'll let you have a chance of your life. I'll sell you a quarter share. You turn it down? Well, I'll make it ten, seeing as you're my friend. Nothing doing? Say, don't be hard. Have you got a dollar to lend? Just a dollar to help me out.

I know you'll treat me white. I'll do as much for you some day. God bless you, sir.

Good night.

4 04 - The Ballad of The Black Fox Skin 10:28

The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin by Robert Service. Read for LibriVox.org by Heidi Preuss. There was claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike, living the life of shame, when unto them, in the long, long night, came the man who had no name. Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow. Deep in their dark, Sincalcan pits were his sombre eyes aglow. They knew him far for the fitful man who spat forth blood on the snow. Did you ever see such a skin, quoth he? There is naught in the world so fine, such fullness of fur, as black as the night, such luster. Such size, such shine. It's life to a one-lunged man like me.

It's London, it's women, it's wine. The moose-hides called it the Devil Fox, and swore that no man could kill, that he who hunted it, soon or late, must surely suffer some ill. But I laughed at them, and their old Squaw-tails, ha, ha, I'm laughing still. For look ye, the skin eats as smooth as sin, and black as the core of the pit. By gun or by trap, whatever the hap, I swore I would capture it. By star and by star, afield and afar, I hunted and would not quit. For the devil-fox, it was swift and sly, and it seemed to fleer at me. I would wake in fright by the camp-fire light, Hearing its evil glee. Into my dream its eyes would gleam, and its shadow would I see. It sniffed and ran from the ptarmigan I had poisoned to excess.

Unharmed it sped from my wrathful lead. Twas as if I shot by guess. Yet it came by night, in the stark moonlight, to mock at my weariness. I tracked it up where the mountains hunch like the vertebrae of the world. I tracked it down to the death-stilled pits where the avalanche is hurled. From the gloams to the sacerdotal snows where the carded clouds are curled. From the vastitudes where the world protrudes, Through clouds like seas up-shold, I held its track till it led me back to the land I had left of old. The land I had looted many moons, I was weary and sick and cold. I was sick, soul-sick, of the futile chase, and there and then I swore the foul fiend fox might scaphless go, for I would hunt no more.

Then I rubbed mine eyes in vast surprise. It stood by my cabin door. A rifle raised in a wraith-like gloom, and a vengeful shot that sped, a howl that would thrill a cream-faced corpse, and the demon fox lay dead. Yet there was never a sign of wound, and never a drop he bled. So that was the end of the great black fox, and here is the prize I've won. And now for a drink to cheer me up, I've mushed since the early sun. We'll drink a toast to the sorry ghost of the fox whose race is run.

Now claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike, bad as the worst were they, in their road-house down by the river trail, they waited and watched for prey. With wine and song they joyed night long, and they slept like swine by day. For things were done in the midnight sun that no tongue will ever tell, and men there be who walk earth free, but whose names are writ in hell, are writ in flames with the guilty names of Fournier and Lebel. Put not your trust in a poke of dust, would ye sleep the sleep of sin, for there be those who would rob your clothes ere yet the dawn comes in, and a prize likewise in a woman's eyes is a peerless black fox-skin. Put your faith in the mountain cat if you lie within his lair.

Trust the fangs of the mother wolf and the claws of the lead-ripped bear. But, O, of the wiles and the gold-toothed smiles, of a dance-hall wench beware. Wherefore it was, beyond all laws, that lust of man restrain, a man drank deep and sank to sleep, never to wake again. And the Yukon swallowed through a hole the cold corpse of the slain.

The black fox's skin a shadow cast from the roof nigh to the floor, and sleek it seemed, and soft it gleamed, and the woman stroked it o'er. And the man stood by with a brooding eye, and gnashed his teeth and swore. When thieves and thugs fall out and fight, there's fell arrears to pay, and soon or late sin meets its fate, and so it fell one day. That claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike fanged up like dogs at bay. "'The skin is mine, all mine!' she cried. "'I did the deed alone!' "'It's share and share with gilt-yoked pear,' he hissed in a pregnant tone. And so they snarled like malamutes over a mildewed bone. And so they fought, by fear untaught, till haply it befell. One dawn of day she slipped away, to Dawson Town to sell.

The fruit of sin, this black fox skin, that made their lives a hell. She slipped away, as still he lay, she clutched the wondrous fur. Her pulses beat, her foot was fleet, Her fear was as a spur. She laughed with glee, she did not see him rise and follow her. The bluffs up rear and grimly peer far over Dawson Town. They see its lights, ablaze, O'nights, and harshly they look down. They mock the plan and plot of man with grim, ironic frown. The trail was steep, twas at the time when swiftly sinks the snow. All honeycombed, the river ice was rotting down below, the river chaffed beneath its rind with many a mighty throw. And up the swift and oozy drift a woman climbed in fear, clutching to her a black fox fur, as if she held it dear.

And hard she pressed it to her breast when windy Ike drew near. She made no moan, her heart was stone, she read his smiling face. And like a dream flashed all her life's dark horror and disgrace. A moment only, with a snarl, he hurled her into space. She rolled for nigh a hundred feet, she bounded like a ball. From crag to crag she caromed down through snow and timber fall. A hole gaped through the river ice. The spray flashed. That was all. A bird sang for the joy of spring. So piercing sweet and frail, and blinding bright the land was dight in gay and glittering mail, and with a wondrous black fox-skin a man slid down the trail.

A wedge-faced man there was who ran along the river bank, Who stumbled through each drift and slow, and ever slipped and sank, and ever cursed his maker's name, and ever hooch he drank. He traveled like a hunted thing, hard-harried, sore distressed. The old Grandmother Moon crept out from her cloud-quilted nest. The aged mountains mocked at him in their primeval rest. Grim shadows diapered the snow, the air was strangely mild, the valley's girth was dumb with mirth, the laughter of the wild, the still sardonic laughter of an ogre or a child. The river writhed beneath the ice, it groaned like one in pain, and yawning chasms opened wide and closed and yawned again. And sheets of silver heaved on high until they split in twain.

From out the road-house by the trail they saw a man afar make for the narrow river reach where the swift cross currents are, where, frail and worn, the ice is torn and the angry waters jar. But they did not see him crash and sink into the icy flow, They did not see him clinging there, gripped by the undertow, clawing with bleeding fingernails at the jagged ice and snow. They found a note beside the hole, where he had stumbled in, here met his fate by evil luck, a man who lived in sin, and to the one who loves me least, I leave this black fox's skin. And strange it is, for though they searched the river all around, no trace or sign of black fox skin was ever after found, though one man said he saw the tread of hooves deep in the ground.

5 05 - The Ballad of Pious Pete 7:55

The Ballad of Pious Pete The North Has Got Him A Euchenism I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God I did. I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid. I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse, in every way that I could. I swore to prevail, I camped on his trail, I plotted and planned for his good. By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold, with precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold. I followed him into Gehenna's of sin, I sat where the sirens sit, In the shade of the pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the pit. I shadowed him down into the scurfulous town. I dragged him from desolate brawls.

But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls. God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame. God knows what I bore that night when he swore, and bade me make tracks from his claim. I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals. And chuck it, says he, don't persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls. But I'll swear I was mild, as I'd be with a child, but he called me the son of a slut. And grabbing his gun, with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt. So what could I do? I leave it to you. With curses he harried me forth. Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the north.

Our cabins were near. I could see, I could hear. But between us there rippled the creek, and all summer through, with a rancor that grew, he would pass me and never would speak. Then a shuddery breath, like the coming of death, crept down from the peaks far away. The water was still, the twilight was chill, the sky was a tatter of gray. Swift came the big cold, and opal and gold, the lights of the witches arose. The frost tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows. The trees were like lace where the starbeams could chase, each leaf was a jewel, a gleam. The soft white hush lapped the northland and wrapped us around in a crystalline dream. So still I could hear, quite loud in my ear, the swish of the pinions of time, so bright I could see, as plain as could be, the wings of God's angels a-shine.

As I read in the book, I would oftimes look to the cabin just over the creek. Ah, me, it was sad, and evil and bad, to neighbors who never would speak. I knew that full well, like the devil in hell, he was hatching out early and late—a system to bear through the frost-spangled air the warm crimson waves of his hate. I could only peer and shudder in fear, "'Twas ever so ghastly and still! But I knew over there, in his lonely despair, he was plotting me terrible ill. I knew that he nursed a malice accursed, like the blast of a winnowing flame—the I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud. Oh, God, then calamity came. Mad, if I'm mad, then you too are mad, but it's all in the point of view. If you'd look at them things gallivantin' on wings, all purple and green and blue.

If you'd notice them twist, as they mounted and hissed, like scorpions dim in the dark. If you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark. If you'd watched it with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls. You'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls. Oh, some they were blue, and they slithered right through. They were silent and squashy and round. And some they were green, They were wriggly and lean. They writhed with so hateful a sound. My blood seemed to freeze. I fell on my knees. My face was a white splash of dread. Oh, the green and the blue! They were gruesome to view, but the worst of them all were the red.

They came through the door. They came through the floor. They came through the moss-crevanced logs. They were savage and dire. They were whiskered with fire. They bickered like Malamute dogs. They ravined in rings like iniquitous things. They gulped down the green and the blue. I crinkled with fear whene'er they drew near, and nearer and nearer they drew. And then came the crown of horror's grim crown, the monster so loathomly red. Each eye was a pin that shot out and in, as squid-like it oozed to my bed. So softly it crept, with feelers that swept, and quivered like fine copper wire. Its belly was white with a sulphurous light, its jaws were a drooling with fire. It came and it came, I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look.

I thrust in its maw the font of the law, I fended it off with the book. I was weak, oh, so weak, but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night. And death-like I lay till the dawn of the day, was ever so welcome the light. I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun, to his cabin so softly I slunk. My neighbor was there in the frost-freightened air, all wrapped in a robe in his bunk. It muffled his moans, it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about. His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack, and his teeth all were loosening out. "'Twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard. "'Twas a face I will never forget." Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so, with their pleadings and anguish, and yet, as I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy degenerate wreck, I thought of the things with the dragon-fly wings, then I laid my gun on his neck.

He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute. And he says unto me, I'm converted, says he, For Christ's sake, Peter, don't shoot. They're taking me out, With an escort about, And under a sergeant's care. I am humbled indeed, For I'm cuffed to a Swede That thinks he's a millionaire. But it's all gospel true, What I'm telling you, Up there where the shadow falls, That I settled Sam Newt When he started to shoot, Electricity into my walls.

6 06 - The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill 7:05

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill Mackay, whenever, wherever, or whatsoever, the manner of death he die, whether he die in the light o' day, or under the peak-faced moon, in cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon, On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier drift or draw, in muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by avalanche fang or claw, by battle, murder or sudden wealth, by pestilence, hooch or lead, I swore on the book I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead. For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sought, on a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized boneyard lot. And where he died, or how he died, it didn't matter a damn, so long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone epigram.

So I promised him, and he paid the price, in good chichaco coin, which the same I blowed in that very night, Down in the tenderloin. Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine. Here lies poor Bill Mackay. And I hung it up on my cabin wall, and waited for Bill to die. Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange, of a long-deserted line of traps way back of the Big Horn Range, of a little hut by the great divide, and a white man stiff and still, lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill. So I thought of the contract I'd made with him, and I took down from the shelf the swell black box with the silver plate He'd picked out for hisself. And I packed it full of grub and hooch, and I slung it on the sleigh.

Then I harnessed up my team of dogs, and was off at the dawn of day. You know what it's like in the Yukon Wild, when it's sixty-nine below, when the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow, when the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood. When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit, and the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit. When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill—well, it was just like that, that day when I set out to look for Bill. O the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand, as I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land.

Half-dazed, half-crazed in the winter wild, with its grim, heart-breaking woes, and the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sour-dough knows. North by the compass, north I pressed, river and peak and plain, Passed like a dream, I slept to lose, and waked to dream again. River and plain, and mighty peak, and who could stand unawed? As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God. North, aye, north, through a land accursed, shunned by the scouring brutes. And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the Malamutes. Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill, and I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill.

Ice, white ice, like a winding sheet, sheathing each smoke-grimmed wall. Ice in the stovepipe, ice on the bed, ice gleaming over all. Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest, glittering ice in his hair. Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare. Hard as a log, and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread. I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him, and I gazed at the gruesome dead. At last I spoke. Bill liked his joke, but still— G'ldarn his eyes! A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies. Have you ever stood in an arctic hut in the shadow of the pole, with a little coffin, six by three, and a grief you can't control? Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin, and seems to say, You may try all day, but you'll never jam me in?

I'm not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue, as I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do. Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round Bout, and I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out. Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn't seem no good. His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they were made of wood. "'Till at last,' I said, "'It tain't no use. He's froze too hard to thaw. He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight, so I guess I got to saw.' So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, and I laid him snug and straight, in the little coffin he'd picked hisself, with a dinky silver plate. And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down.

Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I started back to town. So I buried him, as the contract was, in a narrow grave and deep. And there he's waiting the great clean-up when the judgment sluice heads sweep. And I smoke my pipe and meditate in the light of the midnight sun, And sometimes I wonder, if they was, the awful things I'd done. And as I sit, and the parson talks, expounding of the law, I often think of poor old Bill, and how hard he was to saw.

7 07 - The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike 5:32

The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye, As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the glories swept the sky, As the north lights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of hooch was dry. A man once aimed that my life be shamed, and wrought me a deathly wrong, I vowed one day I would well repay, but the heft of his hate was strong. He thonged me east, and he thonged me west, he harried me back and forth. Till I fled in fright from his peerless sight to the bleak, bald-headed north. And there I lay, and for many a day I hatched plan after plan, for a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and kill my man. And there I strove, and there I clove, through the drift of icy streams, and there I fought, and there I sought, for the pay-streak of my dreams.

So twenty years, with their hopes and fears, and smiles and tears and such, went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch. About as fat as a chancel rat, and, lo, despite my will, In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I sought to kill. Twas so far away, that evil day, when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom, for the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom. Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard, and it hapt so long ago. My youth was gone, and my memory wan, and I willed it even so. It fell one night in the wanning light by the Yukon's oily flow. I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's portwiny glow. Till it paled away to an absinthe gray, and the river seemed to shrink, all wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes and goblin eyes a wink.

Twas weird to see, and it wildered me in a queer hypnotic dream. Till I saw a spot, like an inky blot, come floating down the stream. It bobbed and swung, it sheered and hung, it romped round in a ring. It seemed to play, in a tricksome way, it sure was a merry thing. In freakish flights, strange oily lights came fluttering round its head, Like butterflies of a monster's size, then I knew it for the dead. Its face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed, as smooth as a shaven pate. In the silver snakes that the water makes, it gleamed like a dinner plate. It gurgled near and clear and clear, and large and large it grew. It stood upright in a ring of light, and it looked me through and through. It weltered round with a woozy sound, and ere I could retreat, with the witless roll of a sodden soul, it wanton to my feet.

And here I swear by this cross I wear, I heard that floater say, I am the man from whom you ran, the man you sought to slay. That you may note, and gaze, and gloat, and say revenge is sweet, In the grit and grime of the river's slime I am rotting at your feet. The ill we rue we must en undo, though it rive us bone from bone. So it came about that I sought you out, for I prayed I might atone. I did you wrong, and for long and long I sought where you might live, and now you're found, though I'm dead and drowned, I beg you to forgive. So sad it seemed, and its cheekbones gleamed, and its fingers flicked the shore, and it lapped and lay in a weary way, and its hands met to implore, that I gently said, poor restless dead, I would never work you woe.

Though the wrong you rue, you can ne'er undo, I forgave you long ago. Then wonder-wise I rubbed my eyes, and I woke from a horrid dream. The moon rode high in the naked sky, and something bobbed in the stream. It held my sight in a patch of light, and then it sheered from the shore. It dipped and sank by a hollow bank, and I never saw it more. This was the tale he told to me, that man so warped and gray, Ere he slept and dreamed, and the camp-fire gleamed, in his eye in a wolfish way, that crystal eye that raked the sky in the weird auroral ray.

8 08 - My Friends 3:53

The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief, and I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief. A weary armful of skin and bones wasted with pain and grief. My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray. The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes like clay. The skin on my gums was a sullen black and slowly peeling away. I was sure enough in a dire fix, and often I wondered why they did not take the chance that was left and leave me alone to die, or finish me off with a dose of dope so utterly lost was I. But no, they brewed me the green spruce tea, and nursed me there like a child, and the homicide, he was good to me, and bathed my sores and smiled, and the thief, he starved that I might be fed, and his eyes were kind and mild.

Yet they were woefully wicked men, and often at night in pain, I heard the murderer speak of his deed, and dream it over again. I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain. I'll never forget that bitter dawn, so evil, askew, and gray, when they wrapped me round in the skin of beasts, and they bore me to a sleigh. And we started out with the nearest post, a hundred miles away. I'll never forget the trail they broke, with its tense, unuttered woe, and the crunch, crunch, crunch, as their snow-shoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow. And my breath would fail, and every beat of my heart was like a blow. And ofttimes I would die the death, yet wake up to life anew, and the sun would be all ablaze on the waste, and the sky a-blighting blue, and the tears would rise in my snow-blind eyes, and furrow my cheeks like dew.

And the camps we made, when their strength outplayed, and the day was pinched and wan, And, oh, the joy of that blessed halt, and how I did dread the dawn, and how I hated the weary men who rose and dragged me on. And, oh, how I begged to rest, to rest, the snow was so sweet a shroud. And, oh, how I cried when they urged me on, cried and cursed them aloud. Yet on they strained, all racked and pained, And sorely their backs were bowed. And then it was all like a lurid dream, and I prayed for a swift release from the ruthless ones who would not leave me to die alone in peace, till I wakened up and found myself at the post of the mounted police. And there was my friend the murderer. And there was my friend the thief, with bracelets of steel around their wrists, and wicked beyond belief.

But when they come to God's judgment seat, may I be allowed the brief.

9 09 - The Wood-Cutter 4:54

The Woodcutter The sky is like an envelope, One of those blue official things, And sealing it, to mock our hope, The moon, a silver wafer, clings. What shall we find, when death gives leave, To read our sentence or reprieve? I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, Up on the fag-end of earth, O'er me a menace of mountains, A river that grits at my feet, Face to face with my sole self, Weighing my life at its worth, Wondering what I was made for, Here in my last retreat. Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish! Have ever you heard a man cry? Sobs that rake him and rend him right from the base of the chest. That's how I've cried, oh, so often. And now that my tears are dry, I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite rest.

Rest, well, it's restful around me. It's quiet, clean to the core. The mountains pose in their ermine. In golden the hills are clad. The big, blue-silt-freighted Yukon seethes at my cabin door, and I think it's only the river that keeps me from going mad. By day it's a ruthless monster, a callous, insatiate thing, with oily bubble and eddy, with sudden swirling of breast. By night it's a writhing titan, sullenly murmuring, ever and ever goaded, and ever crying for rest. It cries for its human tribute, but me it will never drown. I've learned the lore of my river. My river obeys me well. I hew and I launch my cordwood, and raft it to Dawson Town, Where wood means wine and women, and, incidentally, hell.

Hell and the anguish thereafter, here as I sit alone, I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care. The bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone. Lips that have mocked at heaven lend themselves ill to prayer. Impotent as a beetle, pierced on the needle of fate. A wretch in a cosmic death-cell peeks for my prison bars. Whelmed by a world stupendous, lonely and listless I wait. Drowned in a sea of silence, strewn with confetti of stars. See, far up the valley, a rapier pierces the night. The white search-ray of a steamer. Swiftly, serenely it nears. A proud, white, alien presence. A glittering galley of light. Confident, poised, triumphant. Freighted with hopes and fears.

I look as one looks on a vision. I see it pulsating by. I glimpse joy-radiant faces. I hear the thresh of the wheel. Hoof-like my heart beats a moment, then silence swoops from the sky. Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how I feel. Maybe you've seen me sometimes. Maybe you've pitied me, then. The lonely waif of the wood-camp, here by my cabin door. Some day you'll look and see naught, feudal and outcast of men. I shall be far from your pity, resting for evermore. My life was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum. Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt. Ciphers, the total confronts me. O death, with thy moistened thumb, stoop like a petulant schoolboy.

Wipe me forever out.

10 10 - The Song of the Mouth-Organ 4:53

With apologies to the singer of The Song of the Banjo. I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone. I'm beloved by legions of the lost. I haven't got a vox humana tone, and a dime or two will satisfy my cost. I don't attempt your highfalutin flights. I'm more or less uncertain on the key. But I'll tell you boys, there's lots and lots of nights when you've taken mighty comfort out of me. I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small. You can pack me in the pocket of your vest, and when at night so wearily you crawl, into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest, You take me out and play me soft and low, the simple songs that trouble your heart-strings, the tunes you used to fancy long ago, before you made a rotten mess of things.

Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes, and you break off in the middle of a note, and then, with just the dreariest of sighs, You drop me in the pocket of your coat. But somehow I've bucked you up a bit, and, as you turn around to face the wall, you don't feel quite so spineless and unfit. You're not so bad a fellow, after all. Do you recollect the bitter arctic night? Your camp beside the canyon on the trail? Your tent, a tiny square of orange light? The moon above, consumptive-like and pale? Your supper cooked, your little stove aglow, you tired, but snug and happy as a child? Then, "'Twas turkey in the straw, till your lips were nearly raw, and you hurled your bold defiance at the wild.

Do you recollect the flashing, lashing pane, the gulf of humid blackness overhead? The lightning making rapiers of the rain, the cattle-horns like candles of the dead. You sitting on your broncho there alone, in your slicker, saddle-sore, and sick with cold? Do you think the silent herd, did not hear, the mocking-bird, or relish silver threads among the gold? Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast? The headwinds and the icy roaring seas. The nights you thought that everything was lost. The days you toiled in water to your knees. The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale. The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam. Then you cheered your messmates nine with Ben Bolt and Clementine and Dixieland and seeing Nellie home.

Let the jammy banjo voice the younger son, who waits for his remittance to arrive. I represent the grimy gritty one, who sweats his bones to keep himself alive. Who's up against the real thing from his birth, whose heritage is hard and bitter toil. I voice the weary smeary ones of earth, the helots of the sea and of the soil. I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance. I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat. In the down world, when the devil leads the dance, I am simply and symbolically meet. I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind. I'm the small boy playing knuckle-down with death. At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish heap is thrown, I shrill impudent triumph at a breath.

I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn. I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest. The virtuoso looks on me with scorn, but there's times when I am better than the best. Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea, ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine, ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain. There's a lowly, loving kingdom. And it's mine.

11 11 - The Ballad of Ninety-eight 10:43

The Trail of Ninety-Eight Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools. Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools. Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold. Heard we the clarion summons. Followed the master-lure, gold. Men from the sands of the sunland, men from the woods of the west, men from the farms and the cities, into the northland we pressed. Greybeards and striplings and women, goodmen and badmen and bold, leaving our homes and our loved ones, crying exultantly, gold! Never was seen such an army, pitiful, futile, unfit. Never was seen such a spirit, manifold courage and grit. Never has been such a cohort, under one banner unrolled, as surge to the ragged-edged Arctic, urged by the arch-tempter, gold.

Farewell, we cried to our dearests. Little we cared for their tears. Farewell, we cried to the humdrum and the yoke of the hireling years. Just like a pack of schoolboys and the big crowd cheered us good-bye, never were hearts so uplifted, never were hopes so high. The spectral shores flitted past us, and every whirl of the screw Hurled us nearer to fortune, and ever we planned what we'd do. Do with the gold when we got it, big, shiny nuggets like plums. There in the sand of the river, gouging it out with our thumbs. And one man wanted a castle, another a racing stud. A third would cruise in a palace yacht, like a red-necked prince of blood. And so we dreamed and we vaunted, millionaires to a man, leaping to wealth in our visions, long ere the trail began.

We landed in wind-swept Skagway, we joined the weltering masts, clambering over their outfits, Waiting to climb the pass. We tightened our girths and our pack-straps. We linked on the human chain. Struggling up to the summit, where every step was a pain. Gone was the joy of our faces, grim and haggard and pale. The heedless mirth of the shipboard was changed to the care of the trail. We flung ourselves in the struggle, packing our grub in relays. Step by step to the summit in the bale of the winter days. Floundering deep in the sump holes, stumbling out again, crying with cold and weakness, crazy with fear and pain. Then from the depth of our travail, ere our spirits were broke, grim, tenacious, and savage, the lust of the trail awoke.

Klondike or bust, rang the slogan, every man for his own. Oh, how we flogged the horses, staggering skin and bone! Oh, how we cursed their weakness, anguish they could not tell, breaking their hearts in our passion, lashing them on till they fell. For Grub meant gold to our thinking, and all that could walk must pack. The sheep for the shambles stumbled, each with a load on its back, and even the swine were burdened, and grunted and squealed and rolled, and men went mad in the moment, huskily clamoring, gold. Oh, we were brutes and devils, goaded by lust and fear. Our eyes were strained to the summit, the weaklings dropped to the rear. Falling in heaps by the trail-side, heart-broken limp and wan.

But the gaps closed up in an instant, and heedless the chain went on. Never will I forget it, there on the mountain-face, ant-like men with their burdens, clinging in icy space, dogged, determined, and dauntless, cruel and callous and cold. Cursing! Blaspheming, reviling, and ever the battle-cry, Gold. Thus toiled we, the army of fortune, in hunger and hope and despair, till glacier, mountain, and forest vanished and radiantly fair. There at our feet lay Lake Bennett, and down to its welcome we ran. The trail of the land was over, the trail of the water. We built our boats, and we launched them. Never has been such a fleet. A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet. Shapeless, grotesque, lopsided, flimsy, makeshift, and crude.

Each man, after his fashion, builded as best as he could. Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced. The winds of the wild cried hurry, the voice of the waters haste. We hated those driving before us, we dreaded those pressing behind. We cursed the slow current that bore us, we prayed to the God of the wind. Spring and the hillsides flourished, vivid in jeweled green. Spring and our hearts' blood nourished, envy and hatred and spleen. Little cared we for the spring birth, much cared we to get on. Stake in the great white channel, stake ere the best be gone. The greed of the gold possessed us, pity and love were forgot. Covetous visions obsessed us, brother with brother fought, partner with partner wrangled, each one claiming his due, wrangled and halved their outfits, sawing their boats in two.

Thuswise we voyage like Bennet, tagish, then windy arm, sinister, savage, and baleful, boding us hate and harm. Many a scow was scattered, There, on that iron shore, many a heart was broken, straining at sweep and oar. We roused Lake March with a chorus. We drifted many a mile. There was the canyon before us, cave-like its dark defile. The shores swept faster and faster, the river narrowed to wrath. Waters that hissed disaster, reared upright in our path. Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom, around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb. We spun like a chip in a mill-race, our hearts hammered under the test, then, oh, the relief on each chill face.

We soared into sunlight and rest. Hand sought for hand on the instant, cried we, Our troubles are o'er. Then, like a rumble of thunder, we heard a canorous roar. Leaping and boiling and seething, we saw a cauldron of fume. There was the rage of the rapids. There was the menace of doom. The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock, butts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock. Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain, then, with the crash of a demon, springs to the onset again. Dared we that ravening terror, heard we its din in our ears, Called on the gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears, sank to our waist in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece.

Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace. But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score? Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore? What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said. On to the golden valley. Pause not to bury the dead. Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh. Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky. The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast. That writhed on a shroud of velvet. Well, it was done at last. There were the tents of Dawson. There the scar of the slide. Swiftly we pulled o'er the shallows. Swiftly leapt o'er the side. Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza.

Sunset gilded the dome. The test of the trail was over. Thank God, thank God! We were home.

12 12 - Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben 4:51

The Ballad of Gumboot Ben. He was an old prospector, with a vision blared and dim. He asked me for a grub-stake, and the same I gave to him. He hinted of a hidden treasure-trove, and when I made so bold, to question his veracity, this is the tale he told. I do not seek the copper streak, Nor yet the yellow dust. I am not fain, for sake of gain, to irk the frozen crust. Let fellows gross find gilded dross. Far other is my mark. O gentle youth, this is the truth. I go to seek the ark. I prospected the pelly-bed. I prospected the white. The Norden scold for love of gold I piked from morn till night. Afar and near for many a year I led the wild stampede, until I guessed that all my quest was vanity and greed.

Then I came to a land I knew no man had ever seen, a haggard land, forlornly spanned by mountains lank and lean. The Nietzsche said, "'Twas full of dread, of smoke and fiery breath, and no man dare put foot in there for fear of pain and death. But I was made all unafraid, so careless and alone. Day after day I made my way into that land unknown. Night after night, by camp-fire light, I crouched in lonely thought. Oh, gentle youth, This is the truth. I knew not what I sought. I rose at dawn and wandered on. Tis somewhat fine and grand, to be alone and hold your own in God's vast awesome land. Come, woe or weal, tis fine to feel a hundred miles between. The trails you dare and pathways where the feet of men have been.

And so it fell, on me a spell of wanderlust was cast. The land was still, and strange and chill, and cavernous and vast. And sad and dead, and dull as lead, the valleys sought the snows. And far and wide, on every side, the ashen peaks arose. The moon was like a silent spike that speared the sky right through. The small stars popped, and winked, and hopped, in vastitudes of blue. And unto me for company came creatures of the shade, and formed in rings, and whispered things that made me half afraid. And strange though be, twas borne on me that land had lived of old, and men had crept, and slain, and slept, where now they toiled for gold. Through jungles dim the mammoth grim had sought the oozy fen.

On his track, all bent of back, had crawled the hairy men. And furthermore strange deeds of yore in this dead place were done They haunted me, as wild and free I roamed from sun to sun, until I came where sudden flame uplit the terraced height, a regnant peak that seemed to seek the coronel of night. I scaled the peak, my heart was weak, yet on and on I pressed. Skyward I strained until I gained its dazzling silver crest. And there I found, with all around, a world supine and stark, Swept clean of snow a flat plateau, and on it lay the ark. Yes, there I knew, by two and two, The beasts did disembark, And so in haste I ran and traced, in letters on the ark, My human name, Ben Smith's the same, And now I want to float, a syndicate to haul and freight to town that noble boat.

I met him later in a bar, and made a gay remark. Anen an ancient miner, and an option on the ark. He gazed at me reproachfully, as only toppers can. But what he said I can't repeat. He was a bad old man.

queue_music Chapters 12