"He fou't us game: somehow I disremember
Jest how the thing kem round;
Some say 'twas wadding, some a scattered ember
From fires on the ground.
"But in one minute all the hill below him
Was just one sheet of flame;
Guardin' the crest, Sam Clark and I called to him,
And,--well, the dog was game!
"He made no sign: the fires of hell were round him,
The pit of hell below.
We sat and waited, but we never found him;
And then we turned to go.
"And then--you see that rock that's grown so bristly
With chapparal and tan--
Suthin crep' out: it might hev been a grizzly
It might hev been a man;
"Suthin that howled, and gnashed its teeth, and shouted
In smoke and dust and flame;
Suthin that sprang into the depths about it,
Grizzly or man,--but game!
"That's all! Well, yes, it does look rather risky,
And kinder makes one queer
And dizzy looking down. A drop of whiskey
Ain't a bad thing right here!"
HER LETTER
I'm sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even YOU would admire,--
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I'm be-diamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a cue:
In short, sir, "the belle of the season"
Is wasting an hour upon you.
A dozen engagements I've broken;
I left in the midst of a set;
Likewise a proposal, half spoken,
That waits--on the stairs--for me yet.
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