"'Look here, Johnson! You're a liar, When you say he's set me free! When you met him there at Mingo's He had gone to hunt for me. Don't you dare to touch me, scoundrel! Don't you dare to slur his name! You're a cur--a thief--Jim Johnson! You have jumped my sweetheart's claim. Don't you dare to venture near me! Or you'll wish you'd not begun. All your schemes and double dealings, All your hatched-up plans are done. You start now and pack your fixin's! Don't you leave the smallest bit! Every filthy thing you own here, Pack it up--you dog, and _git!_' 11 "He was standing there uncertain, And I felt to clinch his throat; But, instead, I shot--to scare him-- All the buttons off his coat. Then I pumped two in the corner, Where he'd sunk down on his knees-- Slit his ear and cut his collar, Never listening to his pleas. Told him if he didn't mosey I would plant his carcass whole, In a grave I'd dig that evening On the eighty he had stole. Then he promised, but I chased him 'Way across the old Saline, And so far as I have knowledge, He has never since been seen. 12 "When I got back here 'fore morning, Thought of having Kelly's mare, So I rode her to his stable And I left her standing there. For I knew that you'd consider Twas the proper thing to do, If you came back here and found me Holding down your claim for you. But I felt right sorry, Billy, When I looked around next day, In the box there in the corner Where the pans and dishes lay; For in fixing for my breakfast, My! the crockery was slim! More than half of it was busted By the bullets fired at Jim: [Illustration: "But, instead, I shot, to scare him, All the buttons off his coat."] 13 "I forgot to tell you, Billy, That for thirteen months or more, You're the only man that's ever Crossed the threshold of that door. I have stayed alone and waited, Full of faith that you would come, So that I--might go to daddie, And that you'd--have back your home. Though perhaps I've sometimes suffered From the cold and from the heat, And I've gone for days together, Here, without a bite to eat, 'Twasn't hunger of the body That I craved to satisfy, I was starved for--you--and daddie, As the weary weeks trailed by. 14 "How I tried to think and reason Why the fire from one caress Turned my burning, yearning spirit To a cinder of distress. Some one told me, I remember, Long ago when I was small, God made every star up yonder, Everything--the world and all. Then I thought that in His workshop, Up there in the heavens above, He had made that curious hunger Of the heart that we call love. P'r'aps my troubles and the waiting Stirred me to this queer-like whim; But I couldn't help it, Billy, I just had to talk to Him. 15