Robert W. Service - Best Tales of the Yukon
alaska1info.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Alaska - The Great Land

Home   Introduction   Site Map   Join Our Email List   Contact Us   Guestbook   Maps   News   Weather   Shopping   Roads

Alaska Map   Alaska Map   Glossary of Northern Terms     ''The Best Tales Of The Yukon'' Table of Contents   The Shooting of Dan McGrew   The Cremation of Sam McGee   The Men That Don't Fit In   The Ballad of the Northern Lights   L'En [1907]voi   To the Man of the High North   The Rhyme of the Restless Ones   The Younger Son   The Three Voices   The Call of the Wild   The Song of the Mouth-Organ   The Trail of Ninety-Eight   The Land God Forgot   Comfort   The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben   The Low-Down White   The Man from eldorado   The Harpy   The Reckoning   The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin   The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike   The Pines   The Wood- Cutter   The Telegraph Operator   The Ballad of Pious Pete   The Lone Trail   The Song of the Wage-Slave   The Prospector   My Friends   The Black Sheep   Clancy of The Mounted Police   Music in the Bush   The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry   The Lore of Little Voices   Premonition   The Spell of the Yukon   Men of the High North   The Rhyme of the Remittance Man   The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill   The Tramps   Grin   The Heart of the Sourdough   The Little Old Log Cabin   The Parson's Son   The Law of the Yukon   Lost   L'Envoi [1909]   The Milepost is the most used of all travel guides and trip planners for Alaska and Canada. If you are planing on driving in Alaska or Canada on vacation then this guide is going to be the most complete you can buy. The retail cost of the Milepost in Alaska is $24.95.   Order now from Barnes and Noble.		The Shooting of Dan McGrew A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game; sat Dangerous Dan McGrew; And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the dim and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house. There was none could place the strangers face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew. There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head- and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou. His eyes were rubbering around the room, and he seemed in kind of a daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze. The ragtime kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -my God, but that man could play! Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could bear; with only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?- Then you've a hunch what the music ment... hunger and night and the stars. And hunger not of the belly kind that's banished with bacon and beans, But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramfull of cozy joy, and crowned with a womans love- A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true... (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge- the lady that's known as Lou.) Then on a sudden the music changed so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear; That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die. ’’Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through- ’’I guess I’ll make it a spread misere,’’- said Dangerious Dan McGrew The music almost died away… then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, ‘’Repay, repay,’’ and my eyes were blind with blood. The thought came back of an ancient wrong. and it stung like a frozen lash, And the lust awoke to kill, to kill… then the music stopped with a crash, And the stranger turned, and his eye’s they burned in a most peculiar way; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went into a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm, And ‘’Boys,’’ says he, ‘’you don’t know me, and none of you care a damn; But I want to state, and my words are stright, and I’ll bet my poke they’er true, That one of you is a hound of hell… and that one is Dan McGrew.’’ Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark, And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clunched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know. They say the stranger was crazed with ‘’hooch,’’ and I’m not denying it so. I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two- The woman that kissed him- and pinched his poke- was the lady that’s known as Lou. Have a great trip through Alaska!	This is an illustrated version of the Canadian ballad "set in a Klondike saloon in the days of the Gold Rush. . . . In a game one night at the Malamute is Dangerous Dan McGrew, watched over by 'his light-'o-love,/ the lady that's known as Lou.' Suddenly, through the doors stumbles a frozen, half-crazedminer with a poke of gold. Draining a drink, he staggers to the piano and begins to play, weaving a spell with his music of . . . love and loss. . . . When the music ends, the lights go out, two guns blaze, and two men lie dead on the floor." (Horn Book) "Grades four to nine." (Booklist) Order now from Barnes and Noble Library of Congress Cataloging ISBN 1-56792-065-9 (paperback) This book contains verses chronicling the Klondike gold rush. The verses immortalize the colorful characters of the Yukon Territory, Canada. They were chosen from the author's earlier collections ''The Spell of the Yukon'' and ''Ballads of a Cheechako.'' Order now from Barnes and Noble Library of Congress Cataloging ISBN 0-89471-201-2 (paperback) ISBN 0-89471-202-0 (library binding) In this omnibus volume is included the verse of Robert W. Service from the beginning of his remarkable career up to 1940. Order now from Barnes and Noble Library of Congress Cataloging ISBN 0-39915-011-0 (hard cover)

Back to top © 1999 Safety Educational Services   |   All Rights Reserved. rbraley Home