and intent. Their very poses seemed to convey a sense of menace--of
danger.

Suddenly they wheeled and turned, and their mounts, as the spurs
struck their damp sides, broke into a lope. As they galloped, Red
Bill burst into a song. A lugubrious, melancholy thing, like most
of the songs of the plainsmen.

"Bury me out on lone prair-ee
Out where the snakes and the coyotes be;
Drop not a tear on my sage brush grave
Out on the lone prair-e-e-e-e-e!"

Then the others struck in, their ponies' hoofs making an
accompaniment to the gruesome words:

"The sands will shift in the desert wind;
My bones will rot in the alkali kind;
I'll be happier there than ever I be
In my grave, on the lone prair-e-e-e-e-e!"

It began to sound like a dirge, but still the leader of the hawks of
the desert kept it up. He bellowed it out now in a harsh, shrill
voice. It rasped uncomfortably, like rusty iron grating on rusty
iron.

"Maybe upon the judgment day;
When all sinners their debt must pay;
They'll find me and bind me and judge poor me;
All in my grave, on the lone prair-e-e-e-e-e-e!"