THE FUR TRADERS
THE moon, on plain and bluff and stream,
Casts but a faint and fitful gleam,
For, striving in a ghostly race,
The clouds that rack across her face
Now leave her drifting, white and high,
In some clear lake of purple sky
And then, like waves with crests upcurled,
Obscure her radiance from the world.
Across the wild Missouri's breast
Which lies in icy armor dressed,
The north wind howls and moans.
Wrenching the naked trees that stand
Like skeletons along the strand,
To shrill and creaking groans.
On distant butte and wide coteau
Is snow and never-ending snow:
Whirling aloft in spiral clouds,
Weaving in misty, crystal shrouds,
Then floating back to earth again
To drift across the frozen plain
In strangely sculptured trough and crest,
Like some slow ocean's heaving breast.
Such night is not for mortal kind
To fare abroad; the bitter wind,
The restless snows, the frost-locked mold
Bid living creatures seek their hold
And leave to Winter's monarch will
The solitudes of vale and hill.
The buffalo, whose legions vast
A few short moons ago have passed
Adown these bleak hillsides,
Now graze full many a league away
Where, through the genial southern day
The winds of Matagorda Bay
Caress their shaggy hides.
The wolves have sought their coverts deep
In dark ravine and coulée steep,
Where cedar thickets, dense and warm,
Afford protection from the storm,
And every creature of the plains
Has left his well-beloved domains
To seek, or near or far,
A haven where warm-blooded life
May cower from the dreadful strife
Of hyperborean war.
But see, across yon barren swell
Where wind and snow-rime weave a spell
Of phantoms o'er the hill,
What awkward creatures of the night
Come creeping, snail-like, on the sight,
Halting and slow, in weary plight
But ever onward still?
Their limbs are long and lank and thin,
Their forms are swathed from foot to chin
In garments rude of bison skin.
Upon each broad and stalwart back
Is strapped a huge and weighty pack,
Their coarse and ragged hair
Streams back from brows whose dusky stain
Is dyed by blizzard, wind, and rain,
They are a fearsome pair;
Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast.
They seem like cursed souls, outcast
To roam forever there.
Yet hark! Adown the cold wind flung,
What voice of merriment gives tongue?
'Tis human laughter, deep and strong,
And now, all suddenly, a song
Rings o'er the prairie lone!
A chanson old, whose rhythm oft
Has lingered on the breezes soft
That kiss the storied Rhone,
Or floated up from lips of love
To some dark casement, high above
The streets of Avignon,
Where lovely eyes, all maidenly,
Glance shyly forth, that they may see
What lover comes to serenade
Ere drawing back the latticed shade
To toss a red rose down.
What fickle fate, what strange mischance
Has brought this song of sunny France
To ride upon the blizzard crest
That mantles o'er the wild Northwest?
To find its echoes sweet
In barren butte and stark cliff-side,
Whose beetling summits override
The fierce Missouri's murky tide;
To rouse the scurrying feet
Of antelope and lean coyote;
To hear its last, long, witching note,
Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat,
Sweep by on pinions fleet.
Full far these errant sons of Gaul
Have journeyed from the gray sea-wall
That fronts on fair Marseilles,
But still the spirit of their race
Bids them to turn a dauntless face
On whate'er Fates prevail.
The storm may drive to bush and den
The creatures of the field and fen,
But neither storm nor darksome night
Nor ice-bound stream nor frowning height
Can check or turn or put to flight
These iron-hearted men.
Across the flats of stinging sands,
Through thickets, woods, and sere uplands,
Their weary pathway shows;
Toward some far fort of logs and stakes
Deep hidden in the willow brakes,
Right onward still it goes
Persistently, an unblazed track,
Bent from the cheerless bivouac
Of some poor, prairie Indian band
Whose chill and flimsy tepees stand
Half buried in the snows.
Yet what of costly merchandise
That wealth may covet, commerce prize,
Can these adventurers wring
From that ill-fed, barbarian horde
As seems to them a meet reward
For all the risk and toil and pain
They've suffered on the winter plain
Amid their journeying?
Ah, wealth enough is garnered there,
Though not of gold or jewels rare,
To rouse the white man's longing greed
And send his servants forth with speed
To lay the treasure bare.
The trinkets cheap these traders brought
The savages have dearly bought,
Persuaded guilelessly to pay
A ten times doubled usury
In furs of beavers and of minks,
Of silver fox and spotted lynx.
For all their rich and varied store
Of peltries, gathered from the shore,
The wood, the prairie, and the hill
By trapper's art and hunter's skill,
The traders' heavy packs now fill.
A journey far those furs must go
From these wild fastnesses of snow,
By travois, pack, and deep bateau;
By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman
Till half a hemisphere they span,
Ere they will lie, at last, displayed
By boulevard and esplanade
In Europe's buzzing marts of trade.
These marten skins, so soft and warm,
May wrap some Russian princess' form
And shield her from the Arctic storm
That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay;
That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed,
May cloak some warrior monarch's breast
As, gazing o'er the battle crest,
He sees the foemen's legions pressed
In panic, from the fray.
But it is not the destinies
Which may, perchance, beyond the seas,
Await these rare commodities,
That chiefly signify,
Though king and knight and princess fair
Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare
Their pride to gratify.
But this; that in the storm to-night.
Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight,
Two men still press along.
Not hiding, as the wolf and hind,
From blinding snow and bitter wind
Nor, like the Indian, crouching low
Above a brush-fire's feeble glow
But, vigorous and strong,
Hasting their bidden task to close
Whate'er obstructions interpose
And parrying Fortune's adverse blows
Right gaily, with a song.
Plains of the mighty, virgin West,
Plains in cold, sterile beauty dressed,
Your time of fruit draws near!
Creatures of thicket, vale and shore,
Tribes of the hills, your reign is o'er,
The conquerer is here!
His footprints mark your secret grounds,
His voice upon your air resounds,
His name, unto your utmost bounds,
Is one of strength and fear.
The magic of his virile powers
Shall change your desert wastes to bowers,
Your nakedness to shade;
Shall stretch broad, rustling ranks of corn
Along your stony crests forlorn
And wheat-fields, dappling in the sun,
Where your mad autumn fires have run.
The trails your bison made
Shall grow beneath his hurrying feet
To highway broad and village street,
Along whose grassy sides shall sleep
Meadows and orchards, fruited deep;
Homesteads and schools and holy fanes
To prove that all these fertile plains
Are turned by God's eternal plan
To serve the onward march of man,
Which sweeping down the vale of time
With gathering strength and hope sublime
Is never checked nor stayed.