“That mornin’ I had crossed the stream straight on a sheet of ice
An’ now, God help me! There it was, churned up an’ cracked to dice,
The flood went boiling past—I stood like one shut in a vice.
“No way ahead, no path aback, trapped like a rat ashore,
With naught but death to follow, and with naught but death afore;
The howl of hungry wolves aback—ahead, the torrents roar.
“An’ then—a voice, an Indyan voice, that called out clear and clean,
‘Take Indyan’s horse, I run like deer, wolf can’t catch Wolverine.’
I says, ‘Thank Heaven.’ There stood the chief I’d nicknamed Wolverine.
“I leapt on that there horse, an’ then jest like coward fled,
An’ left that Indyan standin’ there alone, as good as dead,
With the wolves a-howlin’ at his back, the swollen stream ahead.
“I don’t know how them Indyans dodge from death the way they do,
You won’t believe it, sir, but what I’m tellin’ you is true,
But that there chap was round next day as sound as me or you.
“He came to get his horse, but not a cent he’d take from me.
Yes, sir, you’re right, the Indyans now ain’t like they used to be;
We’ve got em sharpened up a bit an’ now they’ll take a fee.
“No, sir, you’re wrong, they ain’t no ‘dogs.’ I’m not through tellin’ yet;
You’ll take that name right back again, or else jest out you get!
You’ll take that name right back when you hear all this yarn, I bet.
“It happened that same autumn, when some Whites was cornin’ in,
I heard the old Red River carts a-kickin’ up a din,
So I went over to their camp to see an English skin.
“They said, ‘They’d had an awful scare from Injuns,’ an’ they swore
That savages had come around the very night before
A-brandishing their tomahawks an’ painted up for war.
“‘But when their plucky Englishmen had put a bit of lead
Right through the heart of one of them, an’ rolled him over, dead,
The other cowards said that they had come on peace instead.