When and how she stampeded, I didn’t wait for to see,
For out in the road, next minit, I started as wild as she:
Running first this way and that way, like a hound that is off the scent,
For there warn’t no track in the darkness to tell me the way she went.
I’ve had some mighty mean moments afore I kem to this spot,—
Lost on the plains in ’50, drowned almost, and shot;
But out on this alkali desert, a hunting a crazy wife,
Was ra’ly as on-satis-factory as anything in my life.
“Cicely! Cicely! Cicely!” I called, and I held my breath,
And “Cicely!” came from the canyon,—and all was as still as death.