| |
| A WEEK ago to-day, when red-haired Sally | |
| DOWN to the sugar-camp came to see me, | |
| I saw her checked frock coming down the valley, | |
| Far as anybody’s eyes could see. | |
| Now I sit before the camp-fire, | 5 |
| And I can’t see the pine-knots blaze, | |
| Nor Sally’s pretty face a-shining, | |
| Though I hear the good words she says. | |
| |
| A week ago to-night I was tired and lonely, | |
| Sally was gone back to Mason’s fort, | 10 |
| And the boys by the sugar-kettles left me only; | |
| They were hunting coons for sport. | |
| By there snaked a painted Pawnee, | |
| I was asleep before the fire; | |
| He creased my two eyes with his hatchet, | 15 |
| And scalped me to his heart’s desire. | |
| |
| There they found me on the dry tussocks lying, | |
| Bloody and cold as a live man could be; | |
| A hoot-owl on the branches overhead was crying, | |
| Crying murder to the red Pawnee. | 20 |
| They brought me to the camp-fire, | |
| They washed me in the sweet white spring; | |
| But my eyes were full of flashes, | |
| And all night my ears would sing. | |
| |
| I thought I was a hunter on the prairie, | 25 |
| But they saved me for an old blind dog; | |
| When the hunting-grounds are cool and airy, | |
| I shall lie here like a helpless log. | |
| I can’t ride the little wiry pony, | |
| That scrambles over hills high and low; | 30 |
| I can’t set my traps for the cony, | |
| Or bring down the black buffalo. | |
| |
| I ’m no better than a rusty, bursted rifle, | |
| And I don’t see signs of any other trail; | |
| Here by the camp-fire blaze I lie and stifle, | 35 |
| And hear Jim fill the kettles with his pail. | |
| It ’s no use groaning. I like Sally, | |
| But a Digger squaw would n’t have me! | |
| I wish they had n’t found me in the valley,— | |
| It ’s twice dead not to see! | 40 |
| |
