The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-11-03
Exit Carson,s Ride. y

ing JOURNALISTS Tor their many kluQly
notices and courtesies, and thus alludes
to the criticisms on his poem entitled
exit Carson's Ride"
i "As Kit Carson was allowed to die in
Obscurity, without so much as n six-line
paragraph to chronicle the event, it
strikes me as n little strange that men
now cry out against my attempt to pre-
serve the memory of this truly brave
and good man. No sincere, impartial
man, can read my illusions to Carson
and say have represented him as any
thing but true man. The Indian girl
is permitted to perish becuase 1T IS IN
the order of things. She represents a
race that is passing away. 1t would
have been contrary to the order of things
to have allowed her to escape. There Is
not one Indian in all my songs that
survives, not one Indian woman that
does not die a violent death, because this
] is as it is. | have done my work advls-
edly, such as it is, and if l have created a
sympathy for the Indian girl that com
pels an outcry, it is surely more perfect
than had thought"
Mr.. Miller has certainly written some
very beautiful poems, and has deserV-
edly won a high niche in the Temple OF
Fame, and we will not deny that there
are some very beautiful passages in kit
Carson's Ride" but we venture to say
that if the following extract from this
poem were read to one of his former
companions on the border, he would IN
dignantly stigmatize it as n base libel
on the famous mOuntaineer:
We lay low in the grass ON the broad plain lev
Old Revels and I. and my stolen brown bride.
| Forty full miles If a foot to ride,
| Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils
/
| When once they strikei it. Let the sun go down
Soon very soon," muttered bearded old Rev
As he pcered at the sun, lying low ON his back
Holding fast TO his lassO; then he jerked At his
And Sprang to his feet and glanced swiftly
| around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to
| the ground,
Then again 20 his feet and TO me- to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like
His form like king, and his beard like
And his voice loud and shriIl, as if blown from
.PulI. pull in your lassos. and bride 10 steed
= And speed you IL ever for life you would speed,
And ride for your lives-fOr your lives you must
, For the plain is a flame, the prairie on fire,
l And feet Of wild horses, hard flying before,
D hear like sea breaking high on the shore,
While the buffalo come like the surge Of the
: Driven far by the flame driving fast on US
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in its
ire"
We drew in the lassos, siezed saddle and rein,
:. Threw them on, snehed them on, sinched them
And again drew the girth, cast aside the ma
u cheers,
: Cut away ta,pidaros, Ioosed the sash from its
, Cast aside the eantenas red and spangled with
r And goid-mounted Colts, true companions for
: Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a
e And 50 barred to the skin, sprang all haste TO
. As bare as when bOru-as when new from the
OF God-without word, or one word of COM
E Turned head to the Brazos in a red race with
l Turned head to the Brazos with a breath in the
Blowing hot from king leaving death in his
Turned head to the Brazos with a sound in the
Like the rush Of an army, and a flash in the
f OF red wall OF fire reaching up to the sky,
Stretching fierce in pursuit OF black rolling
Rushing fast upon Us as the wind sweeping free
And aftr from the desert, bearing death and des-
r pair.
Now Kit Carson would never have at
2 tempted to run n race of forty miles
with prairie fire, even if ''Old Revels''
was fool enough to advise him TO do so.
Why, the young squaw would have had
more sense than that Kit Carson, in
stead of throwing away his weapons and
: stripping himself naked, would have
. quietly kindled fire in the grass, which
would have made safe track for his
advance to the BraZOs over the burnt
territory-the herd of wild animals be-
hind would have Obliterated the trail
and the pursuing Indians would have
been thrown Off the pursuit. This is
the thought that would naturally have
occurred to the merest tyTO on the bOr-
der, much less To a veteran frontiersman
like Carson.
Carson's fame rests on his skill and
experience in all the vicissitudes and
: eXigencies of a border life; and poem,
avOwedly intended to perpetuate it,
should have some incidents tending to
illustrate that skill under trying cir
cumstances. Instead of this, Mr. Miller
has sacrificed all that was natural and
reasonable III the incident to a desire to
burn "Revels' and the squaw to death,
and let Carson plunge naked in the Bra
zos with no companion but blind and
singed horse and million or so of half
roasted buffalOes. The violent death of
the Indian girl is all well enough, for
the reason Mr.. Miller assigns above;
but lie could just as well have drowned
her in the BraZOs after the escape from
the fire, or gotten up a first-class fight
with her red kinsfolk and let her meet
her death while trying to save her lover
lin the approved fashion, by the hands
of her irate father, while Kit, after per-
forming prOdigies of valor, and offering
half the tribe as n sacrifice to her names,
finally runs off on Pache. He would
have preserved the ''unitiesr I'VE believe
they call it, at any rate.-JdcksORriHe
Times.
a lady at Long Branch excites a great