The Lost Range

Only a few of us understood his ways and his outfit queer,
His saddle horse and his pack-horse, as lean as a winter steer,
As he rode alone on the mesa, intent on his endless quest,
Old Tom Bright of the Pecos, a ghost of the vanished West.
His gaze was fixed on the spaces; he never had much to say
As he jogged from the Rio Grande to the pueblo of Santa Fè; He favored the open country with its reaches clean and wide,
And called it his "sagebrush garden--the only place left to ride."
He scorned new methods and manners, and stock that was under fence,
He had seen the last of the open range, yet he kept up the old pretense;
Though age made his blue eyes water, his humor was always dry:
"Me, I'm huntin' the Lost Range, down yonder, against the sky."
That's what he'd say when we hailed him as we met him along the trail,
Out from the old pueblo, packing some rancher's mail,
In the heat of the upland summer, in the chill of the thin-spread snow...
Any of us would have staked him, but Tom would n't have it so.
He made you think of an eagle caged up for the folks to see,
Dreaming of crags and sunshine and glories that used to be:
Some folks said he was loco--too lazy to work for pay,
But we old-timers knew better, for Tim was n't built that way.
He'd work till he got a grub-stake; then drift, and he'd make his fire,
And camp on the open mesa, as far as he could from wire:
Tarp and sogun and skillet, saddle and rope and gun...
And that is the way they found him, asleep in the noonday sun.
They were running a line for fences, surveying to subdivide,
And open the land for the homesteads -- "The only place left to ride."
But Tom he had beat them to it, he had crossed to The Other Side.
The coroner picked his jury--and a livery-horse apiece,
Not forgetting some shovels--and we rode to the Buckman lease,
Rolled Tom up in his slicker, and each of us said, "So-long."
Then somebody touched my elbow and asked for an old-time song.
Tom was n't strong for parsons--so we did n't observe the rules,
But four us sang, "Little Dogies," all cryin'--we gray-haired fools:
Wishing that Tom could hear it and know that we were standing by,
Wishing him luck on the Lost Range, down yonder, against the sky.