HEIMWEH.

Oh! the wanderer's heart is sick

And the wanderer's way is far,

And strange is the path and strange are the men,
And dim is the guiding star.

The wind is still in the tree-tops:

Give me back the noise again,

Give me back the streets and the struggle,

And the jostling of many men.

Where the toiler has work to finish

And each hand a task to do,

And a man knows why he is living
And a heart knows why it is true.

I am tired of lolling and dreaming—
Give me back the rush and roar,
And the rest the hills cannot offer

And the strength that is mine no more.

They are fair-the fields and the mountains

And the white-capped, throbbing sea,

But give me the world and the working

And a homeward pass for me.

For the wanderer's heart is sick

And the wanderer's way is far,

And strange is the path and strange are the men,
And dim is the guiding star.

Hermann Hagedorn, Jr.

"YALLER" IGO.

It was late one evening in early fall when I first saw him. Old "Bud" Carver, the E'town freighter, and I had drawn our freight wagons up beside a spring in a small park-like opening in the Cimmaron cañon and had just got our camp-fire burning when he came riding up on a pinto pony, and driving ahead of him a pack horse with his bed strapped across its back. He was rather tall and slender-shoulders stooped and slouching-with long gray hair and a longer gray beard, through which yellow stains of tobacco Juice made their way downward from the corners of his mouth.

"Buenas noches," he greeted us in a quaking voice as he drew rein before our camp.

We returned his salutation, and I was glad for the sake of company that he pitched his camp with us. I soon saw, however that his company would not be very enlivening; for all during supper he sat mumbling and muttering to himself as he minced at a plate of bear's meat. After supper he spent the evening cleaning and polishing an old Colts' six-shooter-muttering all the while, with an occasional oath thrown in for punctuation.

Late that evening after the stranger "turned-in" Carver and I lay in our beds by the fire, smoking. From time to time he glanced at the old man, who lay under my wagon sleeping a broken sleep, and then turning to me cleared his throat as if to speak, but waited for the fire to die to embers and darkness to hide us.

"You see that feller layin' thar," he began at last, "an' do you know who he is? Wal thet's 'Yaller' Igo. Of course, you don't recollect when he fust come yere. Thet wuz about twenty years back an' he wuz about the finest lookin' cow puncher an' bronc-buster on the range. He didn't come next after nobody an' thet's praise enough. Ther wuz no 'Yaller' to his name those days—jest plain Jim Igo. An' he wuz slick an' fine, too, an' chewed no terbacco, an' 'hed no beard-sort o' a proud feller, but powerful goodnatured. Whar he come frum most fellers didn't know an' don't know yet,

fur he ain't never hed a waggin' tongue, but it jest happens I do, an' as most what knew him very particular afore he come yere is dead, I reckon it ain't no great harm fur me to tell you what I recollect.

“The Bad Lands up in Dakotee is whar he come frum. Up thar he hed some other name an' he wuz mighty popular. The most popular man up ther, I reckon, fur, when he come to leave, a sheriff an' ten deputies follered him fur three weeks tryin' to get him to come back an' pass the rest o' his life with them. They 'ed 'a' took him dead or alive, jest to get him, but he wuz set on leavin' an' kept shy of 'em ridin' fust this way an' then thet, ropin' in a stray pony from some ranch now an' then to help out until at last he reached the Red River country yere an' decided to stick, if nothin' turne up to change his mind, an' nothin' ever hes so yere he is. What made him so powerful popular up yonder in Dakotee nobody yere seems ter know, but I reckon it wuz some sort o' horse stealin' or brandin' in calves thet didn't belong to him. Sech things tend to make a vaquero pretty much in demand."

A prolonged howl from a loafer wolf, far down in the valley below interrupted the story and Carver paused, smoking and listening contemplatively to the sharp "yip," "yip," "yip" of a fox who had taken possession of a point of rocks close to our windward.

"Mighty cheerful critters these foothill foxes," he began irrelevantly, and then continued his story: "As I wuz sayin' he come yere about twenty years back an' wuz the finest goin'-could ride any horse thet ever made at man hunt his buckin' rim-he could ride 'em slack reined an' never touch the saddle with his hands. He wuz a good roper, too, an' such an' agreeable chap thet he got to be mighty popular. All his stealin' habits he seemed to 'a' left behind, an' he didn't go much on tarantula whiskey, as the Greasers sell, an' he didn't play much show-down, so it wa'n't long before he wuz promoted an' became range boss of the H. T. outfit. That wuz when this wuz all open range an' the H. T.'s wuz the biggest concern south o' Colorado. Wal, he kept a' savin' an' investin' his money an' soon hed a

mighty promisin' lookin' bunch o' white-face cattle over yonder on the Uraca Mesa an' owned all the water claims on the Poneo jest below.

"All the while he kept gettin' letters in blue envelopes frum back in the States. They wuz wrote in a easy hand an' mighty neat, so we fellers,-I wuz workin' under him then on the H. T. round-up wagon,-knowed he must hev a girl back thar an' 'lowed thet wuz why he wuz so kind o' reserved like an' took no stock in them girls as is so common yere in the west. Finally he fixed up a swell 'dobe shack down thar on the Poneo, an' fixed it up great. We fellers joshed him pretty much an' told him it was a great shame to waste so much money in fixin' sech style jest fur some Greaser, or maybe fur some blue-eyed Coyote girl. Them is the kind, you know, thet most cowpunchers marry when they settle down, as they don't often do. While we were a-joshin' he didn't say a word, but all of a sudden like disappeared an' wuz gone fur a month er more, an' when he come back he brought with him the finest lookin' woman this country ever see. She wuz a queen-tall an' handsome-an' she jest adored young Igo. Young Igo thought the sun rose an' set in her an' the fellers didn't say much, but they all agreed they wuz a pair to draw to.

"Fur a year or so things went on all right, but then the question of ratifying Spanish grants come up in Congress an' trouble began. Every mother's son of them Greasers hed some grant or other thet he wanted ratified. Thet wuz the time when Bell Ranch an' the Circle S ranch an' all those other big concerns in New Mexico wuz laid out. They wuz square-the Bells an' them, but ther wuz a concern up yere thet wuz a bluff an' no mistake an' caused a heap o' trouble. It happened like this. Condrodo Andrade, a Greaser, hed a grant of a bit of land on the Cimmaron about ten miles below yere which he gambled away to Jim Fleichman, the man who runs the Commissary at Sanchez. Jim, with a lot o' other sharpers, after killin' or scarin' away all the Greasers an' poor white squatters 'round close, bribed the government surveyors an' got the names o' some rivers as bounded the grant swapped around so thet it took in over

five million acres instead o' five thousand, as it started with, an' took in Igo's ranch, thet wuz twenty miles frum the Cimmaron. Igo wuz a white man an' no squatter an', so they went slow about gettin' him out o' the way, hopin' to get it passed Congress before he knowed what wuz doin'. But not a bit of it. He wuz on to 'em an' wuz raisin' a powerful racket-wrote to Congress, an' the like-an' would 'a' sent their scheme into the air like a hard-boiled hat in a gale o' wind. They wuz afeared to kill him in cold blood, he wuz so popular; an' he, knowing how anxious they wuz to kill him, steered clear of a row. Not thet he wuz afeared to fight, fur we all knowed he could knock the head off a runnin' jack rabbit an' never draw sights, but his wife didn't go much fur shootin', an' so he kept low.

"Suthin' hed to be done, an' mighty quick; so they jest hired some sheep herdin' Greasers to keep him out o' mischief. Like Mexicans always does, they got their ropes crossed an' didn't do nuthin' as they aimed to, but comin' up to his house at midnight they killed his wife by mistake, him gettin' away an' wingin' three o' the cowards as they ran.

"The change thet come over Igo thet night wuz sad to see. Frum a handsome, smilin' young feller, as he used to be, he wuz changed to the scraggly, broken down, jack-rabbitity sort of a critter you see him now. Always before when he come to town his face wuz bright an' smilin' an he'! be a-ridin' his cayuse in a sort o' easy lopin' gait, but this mornin' he come all ker-flop, his horse wreakin' with sweat an' blood droppin' frum its sides whar his spurs hed cut. The story hed already reached town an' we wuz jest startin' out to look fer him, so he didn't need to tell much story.

"The moment I set eyes on him I knowed he'd had more nor he could stand an' wuz in a fit way fer a wreck, so jest took hold o' him and tried to steer him outer saloons an' away frum where the poker wuz, but it wa'n't no use. In less 'en a week he wuz all in, money, steers, pride, an' all Them as used to be his friends, kind o' thinkin' it wuz all fate anyway, hel skinned him o' all he 'ad an' left him lyin' in a shanty drunk an' havin' a sort o' fits. Thet's the way it is out yere, when yer up the fellers all stand pat, but