Done For

A week ago to-day, when red-haired Sally   DOWN to the sugar-camp came to see me, I saw her checked frock coming down the valley,   Far as anybody’s eyes could see. Now I sit before the camp-fire,   And I can’t see the pine-knots blaze, Nor Sally’s pretty face a-shining,   Though I hear the good words she says. A week ago to-night I was tired and lonely,   Sally was gone back to Mason’s fort, And the boys by the sugar-kettles left me only;   They were hunting coons for sport. By there snaked a painted Pawnee,   I was asleep before the fire; He creased my two eyes with his hatchet,   And scalped me to his heart’s desire. There they found me on the dry tussocks lying,   Bloody and cold as a live man could be; A hoot-owl on the branches overhead was crying,   Crying murder to the red Pawnee. They brought me to the camp-fire,   They washed me in the sweet white spring; But my eyes were full of flashes,   And all night my ears would sing. I thought I was a hunter on the prairie,   But they saved me for an old blind dog; When the hunting-grounds are cool and airy,   I shall lie here like a helpless log. I can’t ride the little wiry pony,   That scrambles over hills high and low; I can’t set my traps for the cony,   Or bring down the black buffalo. I ’m no better than a rusty, bursted rifle,   And I don’t see signs of any other trail; Here by the camp-fire blaze I lie and stifle,   And hear Jim fill the kettles with his pail. It ’s no use groaning. I like Sally,   But a Digger squaw would n’t have me! I wish they had n’t found me in the valley,—   It ’s twice dead not to see!