And bade me listen.
................... There be few
Like tales as strange to listen to!
He told me all--How, when a child,
The Indians stole him--there he laughed--
"They stole me, and I stole their craft!"
Then slowly winked both eyes, and smiled,
And went on ramblingly,--"And they--
They reared me, and I ran away--
'Twas winter, and the weather wild;
And, caught up in the awful snows
That bury wilderness and plain,
I struggled on until I froze
My feet ere human hands again
Were reached to me in my distress,--
And lo, since then not any rain
May fall upon me anywhere,
Nor any cyclone's cussedness
Slip up behind me unaware,--
Nor any change of cold, or heat,
Or blow, or snow, but I do know
It's coming, days and days before;--
I know it by my frozen feet--
I know it by my itching heels,
And by the agony one feels
Who knows that scratching nevermore
Will bring to him the old and sweet
Relief he knew ere thus endowed
With knowledge that a certain cloud
Will burst with storm on such a day,
And when a snow will fall, and--nay,
I speak not falsely when I say
That by my tingling heels and toes
I measure time, and can disclose
The date of month--the week--and lo,
The very day and minute--yea--
Look at your watch!--An hour ago
And twenty minutes I did say
Unto myself with bitter laugh,
'In less than one hour and a half
Will I be drunken!' Is it so?"

SUTTER'S CLAIM

IMITATED

Say! _you_ feller! _You_--
With that spade and the pick!--
What do you 'pose to do
On this side o' the crick?
Goin' to tackle this claim? Well, I reckon
You'll let up ag'in, purty quick!

No bluff, understand,--
But the same has been tried,
And the claim never panned--
Or the fellers has lied,--
For they tell of a dozen that tried it,
And quit it most onsatisfied.

The luck's dead ag'in it!--
The first man I see
That stuck a pick in it
Proved _that_ thing to me,--
For he sort o' took down, and got homesick,
And went back whar he'd orto be!

Then others they worked it
Some--more or less,
But finally shirked it,
In grades of distress,--
With an eye out--a jaw or skull busted,
Or some sort o' seriousness.

The _last_ one was plucky--