The flush to her cheek, and with kisses caught
The warm breath back to her pallid lips,
The life from lives that were near eclipse;
Blessed her, and praised her, and begged her name
That all of their kindred should know her fame;
Should tell how a girl from a cattle-ranche
That night defeated an avalanche.
Where is the wonder the engineer
Of the train she saved, in half a year
Had wooed her and won her? And here they are
For their homeward trip in a parlour car!
Which goes to show that Old Nature's plans
Were wrecked with the Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

NELL LATORE

Rebel? . . . I grant you,--my comrades then
Were called Old Pascal Dubois' Men
Half-breeds all of us . . . I, a scamp,
The best long-shot in the Touchwood Camp;
Muscle and nerve like strings of steel,
Sound in the game of bit and heel--
There's your guide-book. . . . But, Jeanne Amray,
Telegraph-clerk at Sturgeon Bay,
French and thoroughbred, proud and sweet,
Sunshine down to her glancing feet,
Sang one song 'neath the northern moon
That changed God's world to a tropic noon;
And Love burned up on its golden floor
Years of passion for Nell Latore--
Nell Latore with her tawny hair,
Glowing eyes and her reckless air;
Lithe as an alder, straight and tall--
Pride and sorrow of Rise-and-Fall!
Indian blood in her veins ran wild,
And a Saxon father called her child;
Women feared her, and men soon found
When they trod on forbidden ground.
Ride! there's never a cayuse knew
Saddle slip of her; pistols, too,
Seemed to learn in her hands a knack
How to travel a dead-sure track.
Something in both alike maybe,
Something kindred in ancestry,
Some warm touch of an ancient pride
Drew my feet to her willing side.
My comrade, she, in the Touchwood Camp,
To ride, hunt, trail by the fire-fly lamp;