A RACE FOR LIFE

Yes, stranger, I hev trailed the West

Since I wuz a kid on a bob-tailed nag,

I hev known the old land at its best,

An’ packed most ev'ry kind of jag;

I hev rode fer life frum a prairie fire,

An’ tramped fer life through a snow blockade;

I hev crumpled “bad men” by the quire,

But only once hev I been afraid.

I hev lain alone while the red-men crep’

Aroun’ me in their fightin’ - paint;

I have soothed the widow while she wep’

Because I'd made her man a saint;

I hev lassooed lobsters frum the East,

Till ev'ry j'int in their system shook,

An’ I'd never run frum man or beast

Until I run frum a chinook.

The chinook had his lair in Crow's Nest Pass,

An’ he foraged aroun’ the Porcupine Hills,

But he'd loafed so long that the ranchin’ grass

Had a wool-white cover frum the chills;

An’ me, like a chap that wuz not afraid

Of anything with hide an’ hair,

Went out in a sleigh to the hills an’ stayed

Till the old chinook might find me there.

At last, when I thought I had tempted fate

Enough fer a man with a past like mine,

I hitched the bronks an’ struck a gait

Along the slopes of the Porcupine;

An’ the day wuz as cold as the Polar Sea,

With a nip as keen as a she-wolf fang;

But frost wuz just like food to me,

An’ boldly over the fields I sang:

“I am the man frum the Hole in the Hills,

Where the Great G. Whiliken capers‘ round;

I am the gent that pays the bills

When they plant a greenhorn in the ground;

I am the Finish of folks that think

They can run a bluff on the prairie-bred,

Fer I give their vitals a fatal kink

When I open up with a shower of lead.”

An’ the cold bit into my nose an’ chin,

An’ drilled itself to the marrow-bone;

My face wuz drawn in a frozen grin,

An’ my fingers rattled like lumps of stone;

But my heart wuz as brave as an outlaw stag,

An’ I laughed though the frost cut like a knife;

Till sudden I felt the hind bob drag,

An’ I knew I wuz in fer a race fer life.

Out from his lair the sly chinook

Had hunted me with his fatal breath;

I dared not turn aroun’ to look,

Fer to strand on the hillside there wuz death;

The hot wind sizzled along my back,

An’ the sweat stood out on my shoulder-blade,

So I yelled at the team through the frozen crack

The roll of the tongue in my mouth had made —

“Get out o’ here; by the Polar Star,

The fiend of the South is on your heels!”

An’ I felt the old sleigh cringe an’ jar,

An’ fer once I prayed — fer a pair o’ wheels;

But the sleigh stood still as the hind bob stuck

In mud that rolled to the bolster-rail;

So I slipped the tongue an’ cursed my luck

As I straddled a bronk an’ hit the trail.

Well, we beat it out by half a neck,

But the broncho's tail was scorched a sight,

An’ I wuz a blistered, parboiled wreck,

An’ nearly dead o’ heat an’ fright;

An’ I squatted down in a shady spot

An’ fanned myself with a wisp o’ hay,

An’ the boys on the lower ranches thought

They heard a voice in the chinook say:

“I am the dope that was made to feed,

To fresh down-Easters just come out;

They'll swallow it all in their greenhorn greed,

An’ send it home, beyond a doubt;

I am the caricature an’ bluff

That is part of the play of the Western men” —

What's that? You say you've had enough?

Well, pass it on to your neighbor, then.