campfire waiting for some let-up to the incessant downpour. We
discussed the situation. I said: "Now, if the stream in the canyon
below us runs to the left, it will be the east fork of the Iskoot,
and we will then be within about one hundred miles of Glenora. If it
runs to the right, Heaven only knows where we are."

The horses, chilled with the rain, came off the sloppy marsh to stand
under the trees, and old Ladrone edged close to the big fire to share
its warmth. This caused us to bring in the other horses and put them
close to the fire under the big branches of the fir tree. It was
deeply pathetic to watch the poor worn animals, all life and spirit
gone out of them, standing about the fire with drooping heads and
half-closed eyes. Perhaps they dreamed, like us, of the beautiful,
warm, grassy hills of the south.

THE UTE LOVER

Beneath the burning brazen sky,
The yellowed tepes stand.
Not far away a singing river
Sets through the sand.
Within the shadow of a lonely elm tree
The tired ponies keep.
The wild land, throbbing with the sun's hot magic,
Is rapt as sleep.

From out a clump of scanty willows
A low wail floats.
The endless repetition of a lover's
Melancholy notes;
So sad, so sweet, so elemental,
All lover's pain
Seems borne upon its sobbing cadence--
The love-song of the plain.
From frenzied cry forever falling,
To the wind's wild moan,
It seems the voice of anguish calling
Alone! alone!

Caught from the winds forever moaning
On the plain,
Wrought from the agonies of woman
In maternal pain,
It holds within its simple measure
All death of joy,
Breathed though it be by smiling maiden
Or lithe brown boy.

It hath this magic, sad though its cadence
And short refrain;
It helps the exiled people of the mountain
Endure the plain;
For when at night the stars aglitter
Defy the moon,
The maiden listens, leans to seek her lover
Where waters croon.

Flute on, O lithe and tuneful Utah,
Reply brown jade;
There are no other joys secure to either
Man or maid.
Soon you are old and heavy hearted,
Lost to mirth;
While on you lies the white man's gory
Greed of earth.

Strange that to me that burning desert
Seems so dear.
The endless sky and lonely mesa,
Flat and drear,
Calls me, calls me as the