HEROES

If ye run up ag'in Carnegie, I'd kind o' thankful be If he gets a-talkin' of heroes, you'd ring in Sandy McPhee. Now, Mac don't want no medals—he ain't th' braggin' set; But what he done back in eighty-one, he's livin' t' tell; you bet! We was trekin' th' trail t' Forty-Mile; sleepin' in snow-b'ilt caves, An' the great White Trail we hoofed it on was milestoned jest by graves. Mac shot on ahead with his dog—itchin' t' make his pile; Carried his grub-stake on his back. Got there? I should smile! But th' blizzard struck him; th'r he was, him an' his dog alone—— A week passed by—then his grub give out; but he never made no moan. His husky died an' he e't his guts; tho't his brain 'ud go—— Then he 'member'd his wife an' kids at home. Who'd hoe their row? Both feet fruz cle'r int' th' bone! Says he "Fac's is fac's";— Gangrene sot in—black t' th' knees. Then he ups an' eyes his axe:— "I ain't," says he, "no great M.D., but I kinder calcalate To meet this here e-mergency as was sent b' a unkind Fate." So he humped hisself up ag'in a rock in a little bunch o' trees, A couple o' hacks with that there axe, an' off went his laigs at th' knees! And he stumped it int' Forty-Mile! What's that? It ain't true? It's hard t' b'leeve, I kin onderstand, b' a white-livered skunk like you! But, if old Skibo is huntin' a hero, ther's somethin' in my mind Says that, if he don't see McPhee, he must be gol-durn'd blind!