THE DEATH OF THE OLD HUNTER
For a third of a century William Reavis, the “Old Hunter,” “The Hermit of Superstition Mountains,” lived alone with his traps and rifle and burros, and died at last as he had lived: “Alone with the wind and the stars and the sky.” In his life and death he was a type of frontiersman now passed and almost forgotten.
Out! Carry me out! I choke in these cabin walls!
Lay me down on the earth under the wide night sky:
Straight on the strong, clean earth—no idle blanket between;
Cheek to cheek with the dust I will watch my last lean hour go by.
Farther! Push back that bough till I face the stars:
North star—Dipper—Pointer that still holds true;
Many a night ye have led—through storm and wind-whipped cloud;
Lead still, old guides—I line my last long course by you.
Hark! The night wind sweeps through the crackling grass,
Nosing the thin, sere weeds that hide in the prairie swale;
Rattling the hunted reeds that shiver and shrink in the marsh,
With whimper and snarl and whine, like a hound that bays on the trail.
Lift me up! My soul hunts with you tonight,
Old mate of a hundred trails; speed on the eager pack;
There was never a road ye knew too wild for my feet to take—
Tonight they will keep the way when even ye turn back.
Lift me up! To my feet! A hand-clasp each!
May your trail be long as mine—knife keen—and powder dry!
Eye true to the bead! Now go—quick—while I keep my feet!
I die as I lived—alone with the wind and the stars and the sky.