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;

Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

“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-tales.

Ha! Ha! I'm laughing still.

“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 was sick, soul-sick, of the futile chase, and there and then I swore

The foul fiend fox might scathless go, for I would hunt no more;

Then I rubbed mine eyes in a vast surprise — it stood by my cabin door.