Ballads of a Cheechako

Contents

To the Man of the High North

My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming

I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,

Men of the High North

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;

Islands of opal float on silver seas;

The Ballad of the Northern Lights

One of the Down and Out--that's me. Stare at me well, ay, stare!

Stare and shrink--say! you wouldn't think that I was a millionaire.

The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin

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;

The Ballad of Pious Pete

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.

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,

Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--

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;

The Ballad of the Brand

'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,

Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;

The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry

Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank

That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;

The Man from Eldorado

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,

  In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.

My Friends

The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;

And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;

The Prospector

I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,

   A-purpose to revisit the old claim.

The Black Sheep

I'm up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard;

"A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard;

The Telegraph Operator

I will not wash my face;

  I will not brush my hair;

The Wood-Cutter

The sky is like an envelope,

  One of those blue official things;

The Song of the Mouth-Organ

I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

  I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;

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.

The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben

He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.

He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him.

Clancy of the Mounted Police

In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;

Lost

"Black is the sky, but the land is white --

  (O the wind, the snow and the storm!) --

L'Envoi

We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,

  Of men who played the game and lost or won;