Miss F. B.
I rose to my feet with quivering knees, and my face went white as a fresh-washed towel;
I had heard a war-cry I knew too well—'twas the murderous bellow of Blue-nosed Owl!
Soc. Chat. Nice fellow—I'm very fond of him—so fresh—capital company—met him when I was over there, &c.
Miss F. B.
"What! leave you to face those fiends alone!" she cried, and slid from her horse's back;
"Let me die with you—for I love you, Clem!" Then she gave her steed a resounding smack,
And he bounded off; "Now Heaven be praised that my school six-shooter I brought!" said she.
"Four barrels I'll keep for the front-rank foes—and the next for you—and the last for me!"
Soc. Chat. Is it a comic piece she's doing, do you know? Don't think so, I can see somebody smiling. Sounds rather like Shakespeare, or Dickens, or one of those fellahs.... Didn't catch what you said. No. Quite impossible to hear one's self speak, isn't it?
Miss F. B.
And ever louder the demons yelled for their pale-faced prey—but I scorned death's pangs,
For I deemed it a doom that was half delight to die by the hand of Lobelia Bangs!
Then she whispered low in her dulcet tones, like the crooning coo of a cushat dove!
(At the top of her voice.) "Forgive me, Clem, but I could not bear any squaw to torture my own true love!"
And she raised the revolver—"crack-crack-crack!"
[To the infinite chagrin of the Unsophisticated Guest, who is intensely anxious to hear how Miss Bangs and her lover escaped from so unpleasant a dilemma—the remaining cracks of her revolver, together with the two next stanzas, are drowned in afresh torrent of small-talk—after which he hears Miss F. B. conclude with repressed emotion:
But the ochre on Blue-nosed Owl was blurred, as his braves concluded their brief harangues;
And he dropped a tear on the early bier of our Prairie Belle, Lobelia Bangs!