"There are stranger things than fiction; What is natural may seem queer, So I s'pose we needn't wonder At the things we see out here. One thing happened since you left there That I call a burning shame-- Did you know that rope-necked Johnson Jumped your eighty-acre claim? Last I saw him, he was plowing, And he laughed and tried to joke: Said 'twas kind of you to leave him All the ground that you had broke; Said your house was so untidy He was sleeping out of doors, Till he got a girl to help him Wash the pans and scrub the floors. 17 "Lots of people coming in there From most every foreign land-- Massachusetts and Missouri-- Made a mess I couldn't stand. Every man that's made of manhood Wants to live where he is free, So I'm bound to keep on moving When they get to crowding me. Then another thing that happened: Puzzled every one around When they heard one morning early, That Bill Kelly's horse was found. Aleck Rose told me about it After I had packed and gone; Said the mare strayed in the dooryard With Mac's steel-horn saddle on." 18 As each day in steady conquest Charged the ranks of fleeing night, Winning back the stolen hours With their golden spears of light; As the living in all nature Felt that mighty spirit's sway, So the sick man caught the power And his illness wore away. One clear morning, as Aurora Silver-tinted all the plain, In his weatherbeaten saddle Billy took the trail again. "Good by, boy," old Zach repeated, "I'm most sure you'll never see Any more o' them 'ere 'lusions, Anyway, what you called 'She.'" 19 Day by day the low horizon Spread its narrow circle round, As if fate had drawn a barrier, And forbade advance beyond. Though the journey dragged on slowly, Night time brought its sure reward, For the added miles behind him Stretched at length to Mingo's Ford, Where the breeze bore from the upland Broken fragments of the song Of the cowboy with his cattle, As he drove the strays along; Where the voice of flowing water And the treble of the birds, Swelled the hallowed evening anthem To the bass of lowing herds. 20 Then the trail along the Solomon Where the timber, making friends With the ever-widening valley, Filled the rounded river bends; Then the rankling recollection, As he passed some well-known place Where before, with hope and vigor, He had sped in fruitless chase. Then the lonely camp at nightfall, Where the wind in monotone Thrummed the harp strings of the grass stems, Breathing low its song, "Alone!" Where the stars, fixed in the heavens, To his upturned face would say, With their heartless glint of distance, "She thou seek'st is far away." 21