Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/290

The camp-fire simmers behind him
In a rhyme with the cricket's drone;
His meat is crisped on the embers,
And he drinks his tea alone.

A ghastly skull of the red man
Shines out from the fern leaves there;
Alas, and alas, poor miner,
Thine own is as smooth and bare!
The mad blaze snaps at the pine boughs
That quiver and waver and fall,
And his shadow leans over the dead logs,
Lengthened and crooked and tall.

From the wild and gloomy forest
Comes the cry of a lonesome owl ;
From the dark ravine up-breaking
The threat of a savage growl;
But his rifle stands by the fir tree —
In his belt a knife and brace;
So he dreamily looks in the camp-fire,
And a smile plays over his face.
Down in the gulch he has sifted
Some sand that is fine and black —
There is gold lying under the boulder
And under the river's track.

Now down on the side of the mountain
He strays in rambling quest
Of a level nook by a fir tree
To spread his lonely rest.
In dreams sweet visions come to him
More bright than the gold below,
For he dreams that the woman is true
Who was false long years ago;
He hears her loving voice,
And they pledge their vows anew,
And hand in hand the dreamland
They wander through and through.