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Frontier Ballads
"Now, hark ye, men of the Frontier Corps,
I ride from the Beaver Creek, Where I saw a sight at the grim midnight
That might turn a strong man weak.
"Chief Black Bear's out from the Crow Creek lands, The buzzards his track have showed:
Last eve he pillaged at Old Fort James, To-day on the Firesteel road,
"And Corporal Stowe, of the Frontier Corps,
On furlough to reap his grain, At the Peska stage-house lieth dead
With his wife and his children twain."
Then up and spoke First Sergeant Ross, Who had bunked with Corporal Stowe:
"By the glory of God, they shall pay in blood The debt of that dastard blow!
"Ye know the path to the Crow Creek lands;
It is sown with this spawn of hell. And there's deep ravine and there's plum-hedge green
To shelter a foeman well.
"Now, who of my comrades mounts with me For a murdered mess-mate's wrong,
That the Sioux who rides with those scalps at his side May swing from a hempen thong?"
Of three-score men there were only ten
Would gird for that chase of death. Quoth Ross: "As ye please. For the cur, his fleas,
But men for the rifle's breath."
They have tightened cinches and passed the lines Ere the lowland mists have flown;
The men are astride of the squadron's best, And Ross, of the Captain's roan. |
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