Waked the woodlands with its piston's pulsing song. Reeling down the rain-washed gullies To its fertile, grassy vales The Missouri saw the weary ox-teams plod; Saw the red scouts on the ridges, Heard the shots and dying wails, Knew the unmarked graves beneath the prairie sod. It has watched the thin, gray dust-cloud With the summer heat-haze blent, And the glint below of swords and bridle-chains, As some squad of blue-clad troopers, Like a wolf-pack on the scent, Trailed the fleeing travois' track across the plains. It has seen the long-horned cattle Take the bisons' pasture lands, Seen the cornfields spread where once the wild grass stood, Marked the railroad bind the prairies, League by league, with iron bands, Felt the dizzy bridge-span leap its own dark flood. Till the cow-town's rutted roadways Into asphalt pavements grew. By wires webbed and busy markets walled, And the steel-trussed office building Reared its cornice to the blue Where the shanties of the mining camp had sprawled. Now the hissing, rock-jammed rapids Where of yore the fish-hawks bred, Hear the thirsty turbines mumble in the gorge, Tearing twice ten thousand horse-power From the prisoned waters' head To drive the distant smelter, mill and forge. Now lakes of water ripple Where before the sands lay dry, And beyond the concrete walls which hold them caged-- Run shimmering, silver channels Through fields of wheat and rye Where yesterday the searing sand-storm raged. But splendid though the epic Of the river's wondrous past As Homer e'er could sing or Milton pen, It will know its grandest numbers In the ages yet uncast When its worth shall yield full measure unto men. In this storehouse of the Nations, Where but thousands prosper now, The homes of teeming millions soon shall be; On this noble waste of waters, Untouched by steamer's prow, Shall roll a people's commerce toward, the sea. Unto us and to our children Will be dealt the untold gains If, shaping Nature's promise into deeds, We accept the willing service Of this Titan of the plains And compel its mighty muscles to our needs, Till its flood runs deep and constant To the Mississippi's tide, And the wedded torrents down the South are hurled, Pouring forth their fleets of plenty O'er oceans far and wide To bear our country's riches to the world. [Illustration: 099] THE OLD CARRY _(Near the mouth of the Missouri River is a narrow tongue of land between that stream and the Mississippi over which the Sioux Indians, on their expeditions in early days, were accustomed to transport their goods and boats in order to avoid the long journey around the point by water. Hence the locality received its name, Portage des Sioux.)_