Now Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike, bad as the worst were they; In their road-house down by the river-trail they waited and watched for prey; With wine and song they joyed night long, and they slept like swine by day. For things were done in the Midnight Sun that no tongue will ever tell; And men there be who walk earth-free, but whose names are writ in hell -- Are writ in flames with the guilty names of Fournier of the lead-ripped bear; But oh, of the wiles and the gold-tooth smiles of a dance-hall wench beware! Wherefore it was beyond all laws that lusts of man restrain, A man drank deep and sank to sleep never to wake again; And the Yukon swallowed through a hole the cold corpse of the slain. |