A portrait of Dr. Byron Cummings

Freedom

By Ernest McGaffey With rough-hewn spruce on a rocky ledge Was builded a wild-horse trap; Its circle bordered a canyon's edge Set close to the yawning gap By a narrow space; and a granite steep Where shrub nor grass would grow Three thousand feet, dropped sheer and deep Down, down to the river's flow.

On the desert sands roamed a stallion proud The King of that wind-swept plain: Like the sombre fringe of a thunder-cloud Was the hue of his ebon mane. And his seven mares with their ruler raced To follow the bronco's lead, As over the Arizonan waste He galloped in headlong speed.

But out from the dawn in that lonely land Came pursuers drawing near, And they crowded the flying, scattered band Through the sage-brush dry and sere, And up and up 'round a winding rift Where the stubby pinon clings. Till the black-maned horse with the round-up swift Dashed by past the open wings Of the ambuscade; and the gate swung fast And the mares, and their leader there, The sable steed and his herd at last The dun, and the clay-bank mare, The roan, the bay, and the pinto stood The sorrel and iron-gray, Locked in by a ring of prisoning wood At the end of a summer day.

Then the stallion snuffed at the midnight air And pawed at the timbers dark, Till the moon came out, and from coulees bare He heard the coyotes bark. And he reared his hoofs to the lowest bound Of the bars that raged him so, To stare with a blood-shot eye around On the moonlit stream below.

Then he swerved to the rear of the log corral To turn in an arrowy flight And thundering back he leaped and fell Far off from that dizzying height, Down, down in the gorge with unconquered will In a death plunge staunch and grim, And one by one, with a whinny shrill His harem followed him.