Ballads of a Cheechako / by Robert W. Service [electronic text]

III.

We built our boats and we launched them. Never has been such a fleet; A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet. Shapeless, grotesque, lopsided, flimsy, makeshift and crude, Each man after his fashion builded as best he could.

Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced; The winds of the Wild cried "Hurry!" the voice of the waters, "Haste!" We hated those driving before us; we dreaded those pressing behind; We cursed the slow current that bore us; we prayed to the God of the wind.

Spring! and the hillsides flourished, vivid in jewelled green; Spring! and our hearts' blood nourished envy and hatred and spleen. Little cared we for the Spring-birth; much cared we to get on — Stake in the Great White Channel, stake ere the best be gone.

The greed of the gold possessed us; pity and love were forgot; Covetous visions obsessed us; brother with brother fought. Partner with partner wrangled, each one claiming his due; Wrangled and halved their outfits, sawing their boats in two.

Thuswise we voyaged Lake Bennett, Tagish, then Windy Arm, Sinister, savage and baleful, boding us hate and harm. Many a scow was shattered there on that iron shore; Many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar.

We roused Lake Marsh with a chorus, we drifted many a mile; There was the canyon before us — cave-like its dark defile; The shores swept faster and faster; the river narrowed to wrath; Waters that hissed disaster reared upright in our path.

Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom; Around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb. We spun like a chip in a mill-race; our hearts hammered under the test; Then — oh, the relief on each chill face! — we soared into sunlight and rest.

Hand sought for hand on the instant. Cried we, "Our troubles are o'er!" Then, like a rumble of thunder, heard we a canorous roar. Leaping and boiling and seething, saw we a cauldron afume; There was the rage of the rapids, there was the menace of doom.

The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock; Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock; Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain; Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.

Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears; Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears; Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece; Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace.

But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score? Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore. What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said — On to the Golden Valley, pause not to bury the dead.

Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh; Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky. The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast, That writhed on a shroud of velvet — well, it was done at last.

There were the tents of Dawson, there the scar of the slide; Swiftly we poled o'er the shallows, swiftly leapt o'er the side. Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza; sunset gilded the dome; The test of the trail was over — thank God, thank God, we were Home!