Do you know the world’s white roof-tree—do you know that windy rift
Where the baffling mountain-eddies chop and change?
Do you know the long day’s patience, belly-down on frozen drift,
While the head of heads is feeding out of range?
It is there that I am going, where the boulders and the snow lie,
With a trusty, nimble tracker that I know.
I have sworn an oath, to keep it on the Horns of Ovis Poli,
And the Red Gods call me out and I must go!
He must go—go, etc.
Now the Four-way Lodge is opened—now the Smokes of Council rise—
Pleasant smokes, ere yet ’twixt trail and trail they choose—
Now the girths and ropes are tested: now they pack their last supplies:
Now our Young Men go to dance before the Trues!
Who shall meet them at those altars—who shall light them to that shrine?
Velvet-footed, who shall guide them to their goal?
Unto each the voice and vision: unto each his spoor and sign—
Lonely mountain in the Northland, misty sweat-bath ’neath the Line—
And to each a man that knows his naked soul!
White or yellow, black or copper, he is waiting, as a lover,
Smoke of funnel, dust of hooves, or beat of train—
Where the high grass hides the horseman or the glaring flats discover—
Where the steamer hails the landing, or the surf-boat brings the rover—
Where the rails run out in sand-drift ...
Quick! ah, heave the camp-kit over!
For the Red Gods make their medicine again!
And we go—go—go away from here!
On the other side the world we’re overdue!
’Send the road is clear before you when the old
Spring-fret comes o’er you,
And the Red Gods call for you!
THE TRUCE OF THE BEAR
Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in—
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.
Eyeless, noseless, and lipless—toothless, broken of speech.
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
‘Make ye no truce with Adam-zad—the Bear that walks like a man!
‘There was a flint in my musket—pricked and primed was the pan,
When I went hunting Adam-zad—the Bear that stands like a man.
I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow,
When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago!