Robert W. Service

“ 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 an hundred feet; she bounded like a ball; From crag to crag she carromed down through snow and timber fall; . . . A hole gaped in 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. ”

“ I'll never forget the trail they broke, with its tense, unuttered woe; And the crunch, crunch, crunch as their snowshoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow; And my breath would fail, and every beat of my heart was like a blow. And oftentimes I would die the death, yet wake up to life anew; 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 ”

“ Wining 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ The blizzard passed and the dawn broke, knife-edged and crystal clear; The sky was a blue-domed iceberg, sunshine outlawed away; Ever by snowslide and ice-rip haunted and hovered the Fear; Ever the Wild malignant poised and panted to slay. The lead-dog freezes in harness—cut him out of the team! The lung of the wheel-dog's bleeding—shoot him and let him lie! On and on with the others—lash them until they scream! "Pull for your lives, you devils! On! To halt is to die." There in the frozen vastness Clancy fought with his foes ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 a guilt-yoked pair", 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 had made their lives a hell. ”

“ The bluffs uprear and grimly peer far over Dawson town; They see its lights a blaze 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 honey-combed, the river ice was rotting down below; The river chafed beneath its rind with many a mighty throe. 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—then Windy Ike drew near. ”

“ 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, 'Twas the hand of Fate, and to-morrow 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. ”

“ Tellus, the smith, was merry, and the time of the year it was June, So he said to his stalwart helpers: "Shut down the forge at noon. Go ye and joy in the sunshine, rest in the coolth of the grove, Drift on the dreamy river, every man with his love." Then to himself: "Oh, Beloved, sweet will be your surprise; To-day will we sport like children, laugh in each other's eyes; Weave gay garlands of poppies, crown each other with flowers, Pull plump carp from the lilies, rifle the ferny bowers. To-day with feasting and gladness the wine of Cyprus will flow ”

“ You've read of the trail of Ninety-eight, but its 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 gold lust crazed us all. ”

“ It's wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt, Till I crawl back, beggared, broken, to the Wild. Till I crawl back, sapped and sodden, to my grub-stake and my tent— There's a city, there's an army (hear them shout) . There's the gold in millions, millions, but I haven't got a cent; And oh, it's me, it's me that found it out. It was my dream that made it good, my dream that made me go To lands of dread and death disprized of man ”

“ And, as you turn around and 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. ”

“ 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 and ever North we pressed to the land of our Golden Dream. ”

“ 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; Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail— In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"— Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze, Half round the world, if need there be, on bleeding hands and knees. ”

“ 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 depths 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. ”

“ I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star; Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of the Things That Are. The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us; The gold-delirium, the ferine strife; The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us; Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life. The nameless men who nameless rivers travel, And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone; The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone. ”

“ 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, And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke; but still, goldarn 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? ”

“ Then will I dream awhile—content, content.
Men of the High North 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 wigwam 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 ”

“ And when in chill December's gloom his lucky lease expired, He found that he had made a stake as big as he desired. One day while meditating on the waywardness of fate, He felt the ache of lonely man to find a fitting mate; A petticoated pard to cheer his solitary life, A woman with soft, soothing ways, a confidant, a wife. And while he cooked his supper on his little Yukon stove, He wished that he had staked a claim in Love's rich treasure-trove; When suddenly he paused and held aloft a Yukon egg, For there in pencilled letters was the magic name of Peg. ”

“ The sleek and painted women, their predacious eyes aglow— Sure Klondike City never saw the like; Then Muckluck Mag proposed the toast, "The giver of the show, The livest sport that ever hit the pike." The "live one" rises to his feet; he stammers to reply— And then there comes before his muddled brain A vision of green vastitudes beneath an April sky, And clover pastures drenched with silver rain. He knows that it can never be, that he is down and out; Life leers at him with foul and fetid breath ”

“ 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 oh, of the wiles and the gold-tooth smiles of a dance-hall wench beware! Wherefore it was beyond all laws that lusts 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. III. The black fox skin a shadow cast from the roof nigh to the floor ”

“ 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 not; futile and outcast of men, I shall be far from your pity, resting forevermore. ”

“ They danced and they danced the devil-dance over the naked snow; And soft they rolled like a tide upshoaled 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 and 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. ”

“ Then the heart of Tellus, the smith, was proud, and sang for the joy of life, And there in the bronzing summertide he thanked the gods for his wife. Now there was one called Philo, a scribe, a man of exquisite grace, Carved like the god Apollo in limb, fair as Adonis in face; Eager and winning in manner, full of such radiant charm, Womenkind fought for his favor and loved to their uttermost harm. ”

“ 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 began. III. 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 he could. Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced; The winds of the Wild cried "Hurry!" ”