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. They ride till the crickets have sought the shade; They ride till the sun-motes glance; And they have espied on a far hillside The whirl of the Sioux scalp-dance. Then it's up past the smouldering stage-house barn And out by the well-curb's marge; The Sioux are a-leap for the tether-ropes:-- "Revolvers! Guide centre! Charge!" The Sioux, they flee like a wild wolf-pack At the flick of the shot-tossed sod, Six braves have lurched to the fore fetlocks And two of the Sergeant's squad. But Ross has tightened his sabre-belt And given the roan his head, And set his pace for a single chase, A furlong's length ahead. He has set his pace for the chief, Black Bear, Who shrinks from a strong man's strife But flaunts in the air the long, brown hair Of the scalp of the Corporal's wife. The eight, they follow like swirled snow-spume, A-drive o'er an ice-bound bar, But the redskin's track is the dim cloud-wrack That streams in the sky afar. They ride till the hearts of their steeds are dead And they gallop with lolling tongues, And the tramp of their feet is a rhythmic beat To the sob of their panting lungs. And two are down in a prairie draw And three on a chalk-stone ledge. And three have won to the Bon Homme Run And stuck in the marsh-land sedge. But Black Bear's horse still holds the course, Though her breath is a thick-drawn moan, And a length behind is the straining stride Of the Captain's steel-limbed roan. The Sergeant rides with a loose-thrown rein, Nor sabre nor shoot will he Till the pony has pitched at a gopher mound And flung her rider free; And Ross has wrenched the knife from his hand And smitten him to the ground;-- "Did ye think to win to the Bijou Hills, Ye whelp of a Blackfoot hound? "I had riddled your carcass this six miles back And left ye to rot on the plain, Had the blood of the slaughtered not called on me That I hail ye to Peska again, "To point this lesson to all your tribe. That the price of a white man's soul No longer goes, in the mart of death, Unpaid to its last dark goal. "Wherefore, that your tribesmen may see and feel The cost of a white man's wrong, And to sweeten the rest of my mess-mate's kin, Ye shall swing from a hempen thong." He has slung the chief to the saddle-bow, Triced up in his own raw-hide, And has borne him back to the stage-house yard, All bleak on the green hillside. And they swung him at dawn from a scaffold stout, As a warning to all his kind, To fatten the birds and to scare the herds And to sport with the prairie wind. [Illustration: 033] THE SPRINGFIELD CALIBRE FIFTY