IV.

     A wedge-faced man there was who ran along the river bank,
     Who stumbled through each drift and slough, and ever slipped and sank,
     And ever cursed his Maker's name, and ever "hooch" he drank.

     He travelled like a hunted thing, hard harried, sore distrest;
     The old grandmother moon crept out from her cloud-quilted nest;
     The aged mountains mocked at him in their primeval rest.

     Grim shadows diapered the snow; the air was strangely mild;
     The valley's girth was dumb with mirth, the laughter of the wild;
     The still, sardonic laughter of an ogre o'er a child.

     The river writhed beneath the ice; it groaned like one in pain,
     And yawning chasms opened wide, and closed and yawned again;
     And sheets of silver heaved on high until they split in twain.

     From out the road-house by the trail they saw a man afar
     Make for the narrow river-reach where the swift cross-currents are;
     Where, frail and worn, the ice is torn and the angry waters jar.

     But they did not see him crash and sink into the icy flow;
     They did not see him clinging there, gripped by the undertow,
     Clawing with bleeding finger-nails at the jagged ice and snow.

     They found a note beside the hole where he had stumbled in:
     "Here met his fate by evil luck a man who lived in sin,
     And to the one who loves me least I leave this black fox skin."

     And strange it is; for, though they searched the river all around,
     No trace or sign of black fox skin was ever after found;
     Though one man said he saw the tread of HOOFS deep in the ground.

          "The North has got him." —Yukonism.

     I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
     I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
     I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
     I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail;
       I plotted and planned for his good.
     By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold,
     With precept and prayer, with hope and despair,
       in hunger and hardship and cold.
     I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;
     In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul,
       I strove with the powers of the Pit.
     I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town;
       I dragged him from dissolute brawls;
     But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.

     God knows what I did he should seek to be rid
       of one who would save him from shame.
     God knows what I bore that night when he swore
       and bade me make tracks from his claim.
     I started to tell of the horrors of hell,
       when sudden his eyes lit like coals;
     And "Chuck it," says he, "don't persecute me
       with your cant and your saving of souls."
     I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child,
       but he called me the son of a slut;
     And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run,
       he threatened my face with the butt.
     So what could I do (I leave it to you)?  With curses he harried me forth;
     Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the North.

     Our cabins were near; I could see, I could hear;
       but between us there rippled the creek;
     And all summer through, with a rancor that grew,
       he would pass me and never would speak.
     Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death
       crept down from the peaks far away;
     The water was still; the twilight was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray.
     Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose;
     The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched
       by the stark and cadaverous snows.
     The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase,
       each leaf was a jewel agleam.
     The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped
       us round in a crystalline dream;
     So still I could hear quite loud in my ear
       the swish of the pinions of time;
     So bright I could see, as plain as could be,
       the wings of God's angels ashine.

     As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look
       to that cabin just over the creek.
     Ah me, it was sad and evil and bad, two neighbors who never would speak!
     I knew that full well like a devil in hell
       he was hatching out, early and late,
     A system to bear through the frost-spangled air
       the warm, crimson waves of his hate.
     I only could peer and shudder and fear—'twas ever so ghastly and still;
     But I knew over there in his lonely despair
       he was plotting me terrible ill.
     I knew that he nursed a malice accurst,
       like the blast of a winnowing flame;
     I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud—Oh, God! then calamity came.

     Mad!  If I'm mad then you too are mad; but it's all in the point of view.
     If you'd looked at them things gallivantin' on wings,
       all purple and green and blue;
     If you'd noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed
       like scorpions dim in the dark;
     If you'd seen them