  Straight away Beneath the flare of dawn, the Ree land lay, And through it ran the short trail to the goal. Thereon a grim turnpikeman waited toll: But ‘twas so doomed that southering geese should flee Nine times, ere yet the vengeance of the Ree Should make their foe the haunter of a tale. Midway to safety on the northern trail The scoriac region of a hell burned black Forbade the crawler. And for all his lack, Hugh had no heart to journey with the suns: No suppliant unto those faithless ones Should bid for pity at the Big Horn’s mouth. The greater odds for safety in the South Allured him; so he felt the midday sun Blaze down the coulee of a little run Whereon the feeders of the Moreau head— Scarce more than deep-carved runes of vernal rain. The trailing leg was like a galling chain, And bound him to a doubt that would not pass. Defiant clumps of thirst-embittered grass That bit parched earth with bared and fang-like roots; Dwarf thickets, jealous for their stunted fruits, Harsh-tempered by their disinheritance— These symbolized the enmity of Chance For him who, with his fate unreconciled, Equipped for travel as a weanling child, Essayed the journey of a mighty man. Like agitated oil the heat-waves ran And made the scabrous gulch appear to shake As some reflected landscape in a lake Where laggard breezes move. A taunting reek Rose from the grudging seepage of the creek, Whereof Hugh drank and drank, and still would drink. And where the mottled shadow dripped as ink From scanty thickets on the yellow glare, The crawler faltered with no heart to dare Again the torture of that toil, until To goad him forth. And when the sun quiesced Amid ironic heavens in the West— The region of false friends—Hugh gained a rise Whence to the fading cincture of the skies A purpling panorama swept away. Scarce farther than a shout might carry, lay The place of his betrayal. He could see The yellow blotch of earth where treachery Had digged his grave. O futile wrath and toil! Tucked in beneath yon coverlet of soil, Turned back for him, how soundly had he slept! Fool, fool! to struggle when he might have crept So short a space, yet farther than the flight Of swiftest dreaming through the longest night, Into the quiet house of no false friend. Alas for those who seek a journey’s end— They have it ever with them like a ghost: Nor shall they find, who deem they seek it most, But crave the end of human ends—as Hugh. Now swoopingly the world of dream broke through The figured wall of sense. It seemed he ran As wind above the creeping ways of man, And came upon the place of his desire, Where burned, far-luring as a beacon-fire, Bit air. The darkness lifted like a smoke— And it was early morning. Gazing far, From where the West yet kept a pallid star To thinner sky where dawn was wearing through, Hugh shrank with dread, reluctant to renew The war with that serene antagonist. More fearsome than a smashing iron fist Seemed that vast negativity of might; Until the frustrate vision of the night Came moonwise on the gloom of his despair. And lo, the foe was naught but yielding air, A vacancy to fill with his intent! So from his spacious bed he ‘rose and went Three-footed; and the vision goaded him. All morning southward to the bare sky rim The rugged coulee zigzagged, mounting slow; And ever as it ‘rose, the lean creek’s flow Dwindled and dwindled steadily, until At last a scooped-out basin would not fill; And thenceforth ‘twas a way of mocking dust. But, in that Hugh still kept the driving lust For vengeance, this new circumstance of fate Served but to brew more venom for his hate, And nerved him to avail the most with least. Of breadroot sunning in a favored draw. A sentry gopher from his stronghold saw Some three-legged beast, bear-like, yet not a bear, With quite misguided fury digging where No hapless brother gopher might be found. And while, with stripÉd nose above his mound, The sentinel chirped shrilly to his clan Scare-tales of that anomaly, the man Devoured the chance-flung manna of the plains That some vague reminiscence of old rains Kept succulent, despite the burning drouth. So with new vigor Hugh assailed the South, His pockets laden with the precious roots Against that coming traverse, where no fruits Of herb or vine or shrub might brave the land Spread rooflike ‘twixt the Moreau and the Grand. The coulee deepened; yellow walls flung high, Sheer to the ragged strip of blinding sky, Dazzled and sweltered in the glare of day. Capricious draughts that woke and died away Into the heavy drowse, were breatht as flame. And midway down the afternoon, Hugh came Upon a little patch of spongy ground. His thirst became a rage. He gazed around, As strewn bones bleaching to a desert sky; Nor did a clawed hole, bought with needed strength, Return a grateful ooze. And when at length Hugh sucked the mud, he spat it in disgust. It had the acrid tang of broken trust, The sweetish, tepid taste of feigning love! Still hopeful of a spring somewhere above, He crawled the faster for his taunted thirst. More damp spots, no less grudging than the first, Occurred with growing frequence on the way, Until amid the purple wane of day The crawler came upon a little pool! Clear as a friend’s heart, ‘twas, and seeming cool— A crystal bowl whence skyey deeps looked up. So might a god set down his drinking cup Charged with a distillation of haut skies. As famished horses, thrusting to the eyes Parched muzzles, take a long-sought water-hole, Hugh plunged his head into the brimming bowl As though to share the joy with every sense. And lo, the tang of that wide insolence Of s
ss="line">Dream-dawn, dream-noon, dream-twilight! Yet, possest By one stern dream more clamorous than the rest, Hugh headed for a gap that notched the hills, Wherethrough a luring murmur of cool rills, A haunting smell of verdure seemed to creep. By fits the wild adventure of his sleep Became the cause of all his waking care, And he complained unto the empty air How Jamie broke the yarn. The sun and breeze Had drunk all shallow basins to the lees, But now and then some gully, choked with mud, Retained a turbid relict of the flood. Dream-dawn, dream-noon, dream-night! And still obsessed By that one dream more clamorous than the rest, Hugh struggled for the crest of the divide. And when at length he saw the other side, ‘Twas but a rumpled waste of yellow hills! And nooks to be the facture of a whim; Yet had the pleasant lie befriended him, And now the brutal fact had come to stare. Succumbing to a languorous despair, He mourned his fate with childish uncontrol And nursed that deadly adder of the soul, Self-pity. Let the crows swoop down and feed, Aye, batten on a thing that died of need, A poor old wretch betrayed of God and Man! So peevishly his broken musing ran, Till, glutted with the luxury of woe, He turned to see the butte, that he might know How little all his striving could avail Against ill-luck. And lo, a finger-nail, At arm-length held, could blot it out of space! A goading purpose and a creeping pace Had dwarfed the Titan in a haze of blue! And suddenly new power came to Hugh With gazing on his masterpiece of will. So fare the wise on Pisgah. Down the hill, Unto the higher vision consecrate, Now sallied forth the new triumvirate— A Weariness, a Hunger and a Glory— Some higher Hugh observed the baser part. So sits the artist throned above his art, Nor recks the travail so the end be fair. It seemed the wrinkled hills pressed in to stare, The arch of heaven was an eye a-gaze. And as Hugh went, he fashioned many a phrase For use when, by some friendly ember-light, His tale of things endured should speed the night And all this gloom grow golden in the sharing. So wrought the old evangel of high daring, The duty and the beauty of endeavor, The privilege of going on forever, A victor in the moment. Ah, but when The night slipped by and morning came again, The sky and hill were only sky and hill And crawling but an agony of will. So once again the old triumvirate, A buzzard Hunger and a viper Hate Together with the baser part of Hugh, Went visionless. That day the wild geese flew, Vague in a gray profundity of sky; And on into the night their muffled cry Haunted the moonlight like a far farewell. It made Hugh homesick, though he could not tell The cry became the sound of Jamie weeping, Immeasurably distant. Morning broke, Blear, chilly, through a fog that drove as smoke Before the booming Northwest. Sweet and sad Came creeping back old visions of the lad— Some trick of speech, some merry little lilt, The brooding blue of eyes too clear for guilt, The wind-blown golden hair. Hate slept that day, And half of Hugh was half a life away, A wandering spirit wistful of the past; And half went drifting with the autumn blast That mourned among the melancholy hills; For something of the lethargy that kills Came creeping close upon the ebb of hate. Only the raw wind, like the lash of Fate, Could have availed to move him any more. At last the buzzard beak no longer tore His vitals, and he ceased to think of food. The fighter slumbered, and a maudlin mood Foretold the dissolution of the man. He sobbed, and down his beard the big tears ran. And now the scene is changed; the bleak wind’s cry Becomes a flight of bullets snarling by Against the sky, in silhouette, he sees The headstrong Jamie in the leaden rain. And now serenely beautiful and slain The dear lad lies within a gusty tent. Thus vexed with doleful whims the crawler went Adrift before the wind, nor saw the trail; Till close on night he knew a rugged vale Had closed about him; and a hush was there, Though still a moaning in the upper air Told how the gray-winged gale blew out the day. Beneath a clump of brush he swooned away Into an icy void; and waking numb, It seemed the still white dawn of death had come On this, some cradle-valley of the soul. He saw a dim, enchanted hollow roll Beneath him, and the brush thereof was fleece; And, like the body of the perfect peace That thralled the whole, abode the break of day. It seemed no wind had ever come that way, Nor sound dwelt there, nor echo found the place. And Hugh lay lapped in wonderment a space, Vexed with a snarl whereof the ends were lost, Till, shivering, he wondered if a frost Had fallen with the dying of the blast. So, vaguely troubled, listlessly he cast The gray-green curtain of his chilly bed Was broidered thick with plums! Or so it seemed, For he was half persuaded that he dreamed; And with a steady stare he strove to keep That treasure for the other side of sleep. Returning hunger bade him rise; in vain He struggled with a fine-spun mesh of pain That trammelled him, until a yellow stream Of day flowed down the white vale of a dream And left it disencha
that drove them to the West— Such foeman as no warrior ever slew. A tale of cornfields plundered by the Sioux Their sagging panniers told. Yet rich enough They seemed to him who watched them from the bluff; Yea, pampered nigh the limit of desire! No friend had filched from them the boon of fire And hurled them shivering back upon the beast. Erect they went, full-armed to strive, at least; And nightly in a cozy ember-glow Hope fed them with a dream of buffalo Soon to be overtaken. After that, Home with their Pawnee cousins on the Platte, Much meat and merry-making till the Spring. Too tautly drawn. The rich-in-ponies rode, For much is light and little is a load Among all heathen with no Christ to save! Gray seekers for the yet begrudging grave, Bent with the hoeing of forgotten maize, Wood-hewers, water-bearers all their days, Toiled ‘neath the life-long hoarding of their packs. And nursing squaws, their babies at their backs Whining because the milk they got was thinned In dugs of famine, strove as with a wind. Invincibly equipped with their first bows The striplings strutted, knowing, as youth knows, How fair life is beyond the beckoning blue. Cold-eyed the grandsires plodded, for they knew, As frosted heads may know, how all trails merge In what lone land. Raw maidens on the verge Of some half-guessed-at mystery of life, In wistful emulation of the wife Stooped to the fancied burden of the race; Nor read upon the withered granddam’s face The scrawled tale of that burden and its woe. Slant to the sagging poles of the travaux, Numb to the squaw’s harsh railing and the goad, The lean cayuses toiled. And children rode A-top the household plunder, wonder-eyed To see a world flow by on either side, A river of enchantments. Here and there The camp-curs loped upon a vexing quest Where countless hoofs had left a palimpsest, A taunting snarl of broken scents. And now They sniff the clean bones of the bison cow, Howl to the skies; and now with manes a-rough They nose the man-smell leading to the bluff; Pause puzzled at the base and sweep the height With questioning yelps. Aloft, crouched low in fright, Already Hugh can hear the braves’ guffaws At their scorned foeman yielded to the squaws’ Inverted mercy and a slow-won grave. Since Earth’s first mother scolded from a cave And that dear riddle of her love began, No man has wrought a weapon against man To match the deadly venom brewed above The lean, blue, blinding heart-fires of her love. Well might the hunted hunter shrink aghast! But thrice three seasons yet should swell the past, So was it writ, ere Fate’s keen harriers Should run Hugh Glass to earth. The hungry curs Took up again the tangled scent of food. Still flowed the rabble through the solitude— And all who had not very far to seek For that weird pass whereto the fleet are slow, And out of it keen winds and numbing blow, Shrill with the fleeing voices of the dead. Slowly the scattered stragglers, making head Against their weariness as up a steep, Fled westward; and the morning lay asleep Upon the valley fallen wondrous still. Hugh kept his nook, nor ventured forth, until The high day toppled to the blue descent, When thirst became a master, and he went With painful scrambling down the broken scarp, Lured by the stream, that like a smitten harp Rippled a muted music to the sun. Scarce had he crossed the open flat, and won The half-way fringe of willows, when he saw, Slow plodding up the trail, a tottering squaw Whose years made big the little pack she bore. Crouched in the brush Hugh watched her. More and more The little burden tempted him. Why not? A thin cry throttled in that lonely spot Could bring no succor. None should ever know, Save him, the feasted kiote and the crow, Nor would the vanguard, quick with young desire, Devouring distance westward like a flame, Regret this ash dropped rearward. On she came, Slow-footed, staring blankly on the sand— So close now that it needed but a hand Out-thrust to overthrow her; aye, to win That priceless spoil, a little tent of skin, A flint and steel, a kettle and a knife! What did the dying with the means of life, That thus the fit-to-live should suffer lack? Poised for the lunge, what whimsy held him back? Why did he gaze upon the passing prize, Nor seize it? Did some gust of ghostly cries Awaken round her—whisperings of Eld, Wraith-voices of the babies she had held— To plead for pity on her graveward days? Far down a moment’s cleavage in the haze Of backward years Hugh saw her now—nor saw The little burden and the feeble squaw, But someone sitting haloed like a saint Beside a hearth long cold. The dream grew faint; Beyond a clump of willow. Crawling on, He reached the river. Leaning to a pool Calm in its cup of sand, he saw—a fool! A wild, wry mask of mirth, a-grin, yet grim, Rose there to claim identity with him And ridicule his folly. Pity? Faugh! Who pitied this, that it should spare a squaw Spent in the spawning of a scorpion brood? He drank and hastened down the solitude, Fleeing that thing which fleered him, and was Hugh. And as he went his self-accusing grew And with it, anger; till it came to seem That somehow some sly Jamie of a dream
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