The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-02-07
THE RACE ON THE PLAINS.
virgie E. Roe, Guthrie, o. t.


The wind lay sleeping on the prairies breast,
The sunlight stretched in heavy moveess rest,
From skyline and to distant skyline dim,
And where the blue dome rested the rim
A sutry mist of fire danced and played.
Waving its spectral hands and oddly made
The spikes of yucca shake their silent bells.
And flashed glimpse of water like those wells
Which flow above the desert for the eyes
Of Him who lost in great Sahara dies.
Frow low along the plain to south and west
Along dark shadows reared its purple crest
And rolling upward in majestic might,
Spread out its blue black vanguards Ger the hgnt'
And here from where the dark horizon lay,
A horse and rider lone so far away,
That both in that vast plain were but speck
Crept in the picture. On the mustangs neck
Low lay the rider and the teltale ground
In measured beat gave back the coming sound
Of far-of footballs. Then a light cool air
Drfted across the silence like prayer.
1t straightway stilled the quiverng hands OF heat
And from the stately yucca languid, sweet,
1t stirred the rich perfume. A silence. Then
A low, insistent roar and once again
That light, cool breath The rolling mass OF cloud
TumbIing and writing with voice more loud.
It's great heart struggling with the winds wild birth,
Dropped slowly downward to the helpless earth
A black, distorted, swinging cropping arm,
The sign of death destruction, ruthless harm.
The heavens whimpered with their pent up might
And hung above the monster in alright
But ah the rider, Low along the
OF his swift horse he leaned as DER the plain
With outstretched and pointed ears laid back
With body low to earth and bride slack,
And flashing eyes the ready mustang swung
Into the which existance hung.
Far ahead tiny broken rift,
That answered for canyon in the lift
And fall of land the solitary place
Where safety lay in all the frowning face
OF lonesome country the most priceless goal
On which was centered mind and heart and soul,
And watch them come, The cyclones twisting length
Swinging and curling in its monstrous strength,
And just ahead the little prairie steed
Running as neer before, the urgent need
Proving its gallant heart and western breed,
Which only could bring forth such matchless speed
No need of urging and the masters hand
Light strOkng the fat his one command
And such race. Could all the wel-trained east
Produce sight like that? And not the least
That unmatched and in deadly earnest ran
The struggle of the elements and man.
The thundring pound of flying hoofs and just
AS chaos broke with clouds of darkening dust,
And untamed fury Of the winds vast might,
When all the heavens hung in gloom of night
A little closer to the trembling ground,
The mustang dropped and cringing for the bound
With great leap the slopng edges cleared
Bravoi-and horse and rider disappeared
Safe in the canyon. Ger the darkened world
Iashing in boundless fury ragged and whirled
The Dragon Of the Plains, the veDgeful ghost
OF all the mighty tribes long dead and lost.
It caught the stunted, brown-eaved oaks and tore
Them from the steep arroo's edge and bore
Them far out the prairie it swept
It's column of black death away and left
sudden silence. And a bar of gold
Hung in the eastern sky as upward rolled
The trail clouds of the cyclone. Afterwhile
When all dark was gone and the old smile
OF sunlight glowed again. up from the cleft
Scrambled the little horse, the one thing left
Above the fattened grass. With steady glance
Long looked the rider DER the lone eXpanSe.
Caressng the soft ears then grasped the rein
And slowly cantered back across the plain