He wer’n’t no saint,--them engineers Is all pretty much alike,-- One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill And another one here, in Pike; A keerless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward hand in a row, But he never flunked, and he never lied,-- I reckon he never knowed how. And this was all the religion he had,-- To treat his engine well; Never be passed on the river; To mind the pilot’s bell; And if ever the _Prairie Belle_ took fire,-- A thousand times he swore, He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last soul got ashore. All boats has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last,-- The _Movastar_ was a better boat, But the _Belle_ she _wouldn’t_ be passed. And so she come tearin’ along that night-- The oldest craft on the line-- With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. The fire bust out as she dared the bar, And burnt a hole in the night, And quick as a flash she turned, and made For that willer-bank on the right. There was runnin’ and cursin’, but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar, “I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot’s ashore.” Through the hot, black breath of the burnin’ boat Jim Bludso’s voice was heard, And they all had trust in his cussedness, And knowed he would keep his word. And sure’s you’re born, they all got off Afore the smokestacks fell,-- And Bludso’s ghost went up alone In the smoke of the _Prairie Belle_. He wer’n’t no saint,--but at jedgment I’d run my chance with Jim, ’Longside of some pious gentlemen That wouldn’t shook hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,-- And went for it thar and then; And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men. JOHN HAY. (By special permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin and Company.) 61 GEORGE NIDIVER Men have done brave deeds, And bards have sung them well; I of good George Nidiver Now the tale will tell. In Californian mountains A hunter bold was he; Keen his eye and sure his aim As any you should see. A little Indian boy Followed him everywhere, Eager to share the hunter’s joy, The hunter’s meal to share. And when the bird or deer Fell by the hunter’s skill, The boy was always near To help with right good will. One day as through the cleft Between two mountains steep, Shut in both right and left, Their questing way they keep, They see two grizzly bears, With hunger fierce and fell, Rush at them unawares Right down the narrow dell. The boy turned round with screams, And ran with terror wild; One of the pair of savage beasts Pursued the shrieking child.