Jack Whitcomb he said his name was, though I doubted. For the name on his bosom, tattooed in purple, Didn't point quite that way. But that doesn't matter. One name in the woods is as good as another If a man answers to it and it's easily spoken. So we called him Jack Whitcomb and asked nothing further. Brave? Why, of course he was brave. Men are not cowards. Cowards don't come to the woods. They stay in the cities, Where policemen are thick and the streets are all lighted. In the woods men trail with their ears and eyes open, And sleep when they sleep with their hands on their rifles. Why? Well, panthers are plenty and cunning and quiet, And a man is a fool that goes carelessly stumbling Under trees where they crouch, under crags where they gather. Furthermore, with the saints, now and then there are sinners That live in the woods; and some half-breeds are wicked, And know nothing of law unless taught by a bullet. I've done what I could to teach knaves the commandments. Yes. Jack Whitcomb was brave. Brave as the bravest. His glance was as keen and his mouth was as silent As a trailer's should be who looks and who listens By day and by night, having no one to talk to. His finger was quick when it handled the trigger, And his eye loved the sights as lightning loves rivers. I've seen him stand up when the odds were against him. Stand up like a man who takes coolly the chances. That proves he was brave as I understand it. One day we were boating on far Mistassinni. We were fetching the portage above the great rapids, Where they whirled, roaring down, freshet full, at their whitest, When we saw from a rock that stretched outward and over The wild hissing water as it swept on in thunder, A canoe coming down, rolling over and over, With a little papoose clinging tight to the lashings; And as it lanced by Jack went in like an otter. How he did it God knows, but at the foot of the rapids, Half a mile farther down racing onward, I found him High and dry on the beach in a faint like a woman, With the little papoose pulling away at his jacket. And when he came to, he put child to his shoulder, Nor stopped till it lay in the arms of its mother.