"Then the carts came faster,
And at the time of snow
We camped outside the Palisade,
Seventy years ago.
"Arrows, guns—big Buffalo hunts,
Much long fight,
And fires to warm the tepees
For the feasts at night.
"But when they laid the steel
And the long trail awoke
My Indian tribe had scattered
Like the wigwam smoke."
His gaze was unconcerned,
Yet he scanned the way he knew,
As though from out its clamour
He had found a vanished clew.
And I thought it must be strange
To sit in the sun
And look upon an ancient road
That you had seen begun
Out of silence and mystery
And crafty, ambushed death,
Come alive with men, and monsters
Of such an alien breath.
(Oh, the long blue road
And the stealthy pad of feet
And the first patient ox-cart
With its sail-like sheet!)
BUFFALO MEAT
A Daughter-in-law Writes
It takes a letter sixty days to go—
An Indian boy runs down the trail to-night.
What shall I write to you?
My mind is full of gossip of a town
That you have never dreamed of.
So—shall I tell you of our shacks,
Huddled behind the tall stockade?
Our guns, with muzzles set against the prairie?
What if I write the truth!
Your son is now a savage;
By that much more I love him!