The Weekly Visitor

KIT CARSON'S RIDE.

BY JOAQUIN MILLER.

Run! No, you bet, you: I rather guess so.
But he's blind as a badger. Whoa, Pa-che, boy, whoa.
No, you wouldn't think so to look at his eyes,
But he is badger blind, and it happened this wise:-
We lay in the grasses and the sunburnt clover
That spread on the ground like a great brown cover.
Northward and southward and west and away
To the Brazos, to where our lodges lay.
One broad and unbroken sea of brown,
Awaiting the curtains of night to come down
To cover us over and conceal our flight
With my brown bride, won from an Indian town
That lay in the rear the full ride of a night.
We lounged in the grasses—her eyes were in mine,
And her hands on my knee, and her hair was as wine
In its wealth and its flood, pouring on and all over
Her bosom wine-red, and pressed never by one,
And her touch was as warm as the surge of the clover
Burnt brown as it reached to the kiss of the sun,
And her words were as low as the lute-throated dove,
And as laden with love as the heart when it beats
In its hot eager answer to earliest love,
Or the bee harried home by its burden of sweets.
We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels,
Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride.
Forty full miles if a foot to ride,
Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils
Of red Comanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
Holding fast to his lasso; then he jerked at his steed
And sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground,
Then again to his feet and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud.
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,-
"Pull, pull in your lassoes and bridle to steed,
And speed, if ever for life you would speed;
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride,
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,
And feet of wild horses hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore;
While the buffalo come like the surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire."
We drew in the lassoes, seized saddle and rein,
Threw them on, cinched them on, cinched them over again
And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheer,
Cut away tapideros, loose the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red and spangled with gold.
And gold-mounted Colt's, true companions for years,
Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath,
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse,
As bare as when born, as when new from the hand
Of God, without word, or one word of command,
Turned head to the Brazos in a red race with death.
Turned head to the Brazos with a breath in the hair
Blowing hot from a king leaving death in his course;
Turned head to the Brazos with a sound in the air
Like the rush of an army, and a flash in the eye
Of a red wall of fire reaching up to the sky,
Stretching fierce in pursuit of a black rolling sea.
Rushing fast upon us as the wind sweeping free
And afar from the desert, bearing death and despair.
Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall.
Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low call
Of love-note or courage, but on o'er the plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane
With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein.
Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray nose to nose.
Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced wind blows,
Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer
There was work to be done, there was death in the air
And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.
Gray nose to gray nose and each steady mustang
Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the hollow earth rang.
And the foam from the flank and the croup and the neck
Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
Twenty miles! thirty miles! a dim distant speck,
Then a long reaching line and the Brazos in sight.
And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight.
I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right,
But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder
And saw his horse stagger, I saw his head drooping
Hard on his breast, and his naked breast stooping
Low down to the mane as so swifter and bolder
Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire.
To right and to left the black buffalo came.
In miles and in millions, rolling on in despair
With their beards to the dust and black tails in the air
As a terrible surf on a red sea of flame
Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher.
He rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,
The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire.
While his keen crooked horns through the storm of his mane
Like black lances lifted and lifted again;
And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through
And he fell and was lost, as we rode two and two.
With a long look of love, not a look of despair,
And a pity so sweet that the curls had been wet,
Her mocking bird floated, the river was set
To and fro and steady, and all by her merit
This to win my wealth, wicked woman we wed,
With a shock of dust, Mr. this reeve, you me,
Won my boat and side that swk
Lled yse a tek bnh, wopim weozthik dowr
Am4 oo thoe I woe Uxe tror bort ty bhd
Y, mrtsihor's and draitlest soemy'o chixt
3nd chin d thr tiesiy wysiiei d h tribr.
Mme tombi me th sierd ie de borle the Miit
Miw 4rt Brotoamd me in lr7 prribo Uixix
Froo tihy htyet y thkdd ths Sorth Bor
m
,An K Jotiex that L, oe L setz, choekd rids
Thr Sost-Ruwtrd Parie, o ut tio eboeld perwed
I cioakd teiy totoex witwt sbst ad
Thom te rde, itboat Wovd, U thy Durtl Daeo
Smd esh h cMis tn ty kt wk
Hom m Mn t t Fim,
3nd min the wronld jutn we tnd all woekd be wrild
W thoet boudnbed or word.
Fr t t
"n lot o dilwal
It surt e mund, Mir e huri4 tit
Lott Ictouk mtrh and, choah siay bemd c
( re hootaet for bor io Dy Krmiblr Fisil,
It ti: raimt Sre Rt Momd Dt t
t H
Hands in their hair, and kissed hot till they died-
Till they died with a wild and a desolate moan,
As a sea heart broken on the hard brown stone.
And into the Brazos I rode all alone-
All alone, save only a horse long-limbed,
And blind and bare and burnt to the skin,
Then just as the terrible sea came in
And tumbled its thousands hot into the tide,
Till the tide blocked up and the swift stream brimmed
In eddies we struck on the opposite side
Sell Pa-che—blind Pa-che! Now, mister, look here,
You have slept in my tent and partook of my cheer
Many days, many days, on this rugged frontier,
For the ways they were rough and Comanches were near;
But you'd better pack up! Curse your dirty skin!
I couldn't have thought you so niggardly small
Do you men that make boots think an old mountaineer
On the rough border born has no tum-tum at all?
Sell Pa-che! You buy him: A bag full of gold!
You show him! Tell of him the tale I have told!
Why, he bore me through fire, and is blind, and is old!
Now pack up your papers, and get up and spin,
And never look back. Blast you and your tin!