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THE FIRE of ROMANCE 
 
The Fire 6>/ Romance 
 
 An Imaginative Play in One Act 
 
 Written for the Cactus Club of Denver, by 
 
 James Grafton Rogers and performed 
 
 by the Club in its outdoor theatre 
 
 in the Rocky Mountains, 
 
 September 6, 1919 
 
 Printed for the Cactus Club, Denver : 1920 
 
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 -^"...^ 
 
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 Copyright, 1920 
 
 by the 
 
 Cactus Club 
 
 APR -b \^^ 
 ©CI.A566593 
 
NOTE 
 
 THE fantastic text of this little play de- 
 mands some explanation. 
 It was designed as the framework of an 
 hour's performance to be given on a stream- 
 bank in the open air. The text was embroid- 
 ered with the sensations associated with the 
 immense moimtains surrounding the theater, 
 a spruce forest, canyon echoes, and the trickle 
 of tiny waterfalls across the stage. The site 
 was entirely natural, the only structure on the 
 stage being a low stone fire-place. With elab- 
 orate but inconspicuous lighting facilities, and 
 a stage as wide and deep as the mountain side, 
 it was possible to play upon the sensations with 
 distant voices and torches in the woods, hidden 
 music, water reflections, campfires scattered in 
 the background to suggest an army bivouac, 
 strange green flares among the evergreens, and 
 bursts of red flame when the fire was fed by 
 ''understanding hands." These embellishments, 
 brilliant costuming, and good amateur acting 
 were the body of which this text was only a 
 skeleton. It should be noted in connection 
 with the closing lines that the lights of Denver, 
 
twenty miles away and half a mile below, were 
 visible almost from the auditorium. 
 
 The characters are those of local history. 
 Coronado, the most romantic of the Spanish 
 explorers, visited the southern Rocky Moun- 
 tains about 1840. He left the Spanish settle- 
 ments in Mexico guided by Friar Marcos de 
 Niza, who was supposed to have seen the seven 
 rich cities of Cibola, which the venturers 
 hoped to sack. When these cities turned out 
 to be mere Indian pueblos, Coronado pene- 
 trated further northeast into the prairie coun- 
 try, in search of another fabled metropolis, 
 Quivira. He found only Indian wickiups, and 
 the great herds of what his chroniclers called 
 "hump-backed oxen.'* 
 
 Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike represents the 
 romance of the American republic. He en- 
 tered these same mountains in 1806. No ex- 
 plorer ever suffered physical and mental dis- 
 tress more intense. The reference in the lines 
 to the Aaron Burr conspiracy is based on a 
 much- discussed mystery surrounding Pike's 
 mission. Many historians believe the accusa- 
 tion. 
 
 Dr. Edwin James, who typifies the drama of 
 science, was the botanist of the government 
 expedition to Colorado, led by Major Long, in 
 
1820. The peaks bearing the names of Long 
 and James are visible from the Club campsite. 
 James may be considered the first scientist to 
 study the Rocky Mountains, and his lines orig- 
 inated in the passages in his book which cele- 
 brate the discovery of the blue western colum- 
 bine. 
 
 George Jackson, a prospector from Cali- 
 fomian scenes, made the first substantial gold 
 discovery in Colorado, near Idaho Springs, in 
 the winter of 1858-1859, under the circum- 
 stances which the play recounts. His discovery 
 launched the era of commercial development. 
 Jackson's route in and out of the mountains 
 must have passed near the spot which the Club 
 uses as its theater. 
 
 The play is printed as the record of a Sep- 
 teniber evening among great mountains, and 
 of an amateur experiment in the outdoor thea- 
 ter. It has no other claims. 
 
 J. G. R. 
 
CAST 
 
 (With the players and staff of September 6, 1919) 
 
 The Romance of Spain, 1540 — 
 Coronado Forrest S. Rutherford 
 
 The Romance of the United States, 1806 — 
 
 Pike William W. Grant, Jr. 
 
 The Romance of Science, 1820 — 
 
 James E. Clinton Jansen 
 
 The Romance of Commerce, 1859 — 
 Jackson Hugh McLean 
 
 Voice in the Woods Edward C. Stimson 
 
 Boy Scout Irvin J. McCrary 
 
 Friar Marcos Robert G. Bosworth 
 
 Cardenas, a Spanish Captain Charles T. Sidlo 
 
 Castaneda, another Robert L. Steams 
 
 Spanish soldiers 
 
 Caldwell Martin, LeRoy McWhinney 
 
 Indians Henry F. Hitch, J. Delano Hitch 
 
 Incidental Music. .. .Ralph Hartzell, C. H. Hanington 
 Composed by John H, Gower, Mus. Doc. Oxon. 
 
 Mechanics and Lighting Fred W. Hart 
 
 TT, + a+ fF 5 Allen True, John S. Collbran, Dudley 
 1 nearer feian. -^ ^^^^^ ^ ^ ^^^^^ Edmund B. Rogers 
 
 Site by courtesy of G. L. Baird 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 A glen in the middle heights of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The foreground is a grassy bench 
 between high stream-banks^ across which 
 trickles a rividet^ scarcely surviving the sum- 
 mer. In the background the stream emerges 
 from the gloom of spruce trunks^ and tumbles 
 down through ferns on little stages to the feet 
 of the audience. There is a sense of solitude 
 and refuge in the scene; for it is not a forest 
 glen., but simply a sheltered angle in a country 
 of wide spaces and exposed mountain heights. 
 Twilight. In the foreground fire embers., with 
 a thread of smoke from a rough fireplace. 
 
 The foliage sways a little in the breeze that 
 always follows sunfall in the open western 
 country., and as if out of the leaves comes very 
 simple music. Then a voice chanting. A faint 
 green phosphorescence begins among the tree 
 trunks^ as if to suggest some immaterial wood- 
 land presence. It silhouettes the trees like a 
 wide swainp light. 
 
10 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 A Voice in the Trees: 
 After the light, westward the night 
 
 Hurries and must! 
 Scurrying after day, out of the shadows' way 
 
 One little gust! 
 Silver that tips the spruce, gold that the skies 
 produce — 
 
 Is that their quest? 
 Such are the dreams that keep men from their 
 troubled sleep. 
 
 Journeying west. 
 On, on, laboring on, 
 Minutes and winds and man! 
 Over the pine and the columbine. 
 Beating west since the world began. 
 
 Canyon and hill, answer who will. 
 
 Where the world goes! 
 What does it hope to find, sweet as if left behind, 
 
 Cedar and rose. 
 Striding and brushing by harebell or dragon-fly, 
 
 Meadow or crest, 
 Sunbeam and caravan, great hours and little man, 
 
 Journey on west! 
 On, on, shadow and dawn, 
 Never return nor fail! 
 But the souls of men stray back again. 
 If they ever have trod this trail. 
 
 A hoy'^s voice on the hill to the left inter- 
 rupts the music, which, unnoticed, after a little 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 11 
 
 subsides. A Boy Scout, with his hat and 
 one shoe lost, his knapsack straps broken, and 
 a torn semaphore flag in his hand, slides dis- 
 consolately down the stream-hank. He does 
 not speak after he reaches the stage, hut it is 
 evident that he is lost in the mountains. He 
 sits down in the foreground to handage his 
 foot with a handana; then starts up as if he 
 heard a call hehind. After listening intently, 
 he relaxes discouraged, as he seems to have 
 done a dozen times before; starts to call, hut 
 stops as if hesitating to break the silence. The 
 dusk deepens. Noticing its intensity, he starts 
 to the right to climb the opposite stream-bank, 
 but stumbles, slides back, and lies huddled for 
 a minute, with a sob or two. 
 
 His bare foot has met a curious obstruction. 
 He rises with a battered Spanish helmet in his 
 hand, and, with a little ga^sp, his mind flooded 
 with gorgeous scraps from the history of the 
 Great Adventurers, he holds the casque up to 
 catch the light on its unrusted points. He 
 claps it on his head, mounts a rock, and strikes 
 an attitude, drawing an imaginary sword to 
 a salute. He is boyish and ridicidous, but in 
 the tide of world-old emotions. He looks more 
 
12 THE FIEE OF ROMANCE 
 
 closely about on the ground^ and finds the 
 broken stock of a uvusket^ and then a battered 
 tin cnp and the horns from a bujfalo skull. 
 
 Gathering his treasures in his arnis^ he piles 
 them on a rock in the foreground^ and^ as he 
 does so^ burns his foot in the embers of the 
 fire. He is a little startled^ but his trophies 
 again catch his fancy, and.^ nnth the helmet 
 over his eyes^ the gun-stocky the flag^ the cup^ 
 and the horns in his arms, he leans against the 
 rock., wrapped in dreams of old romance, and 
 nods to sleep. 
 
 Darker. A bar or two of the music. Faint 
 in the distance, a Spanish marching-song sung 
 by many coarse voices. 
 
 Song : 
 
 The moonlight lamps on Spanish camps 
 
 Pitxhed all around the world; 
 At eventide on every wide 
 
 Sea, Spanish sails are furled. 
 
 March on, my lads, march on! 
 
 On mountain and on plain 
 
 'Mid gayety and pain, 
 Till every headland knows the tread 
 
 Of the Venturers of Spain — 
 
 Of the Venturers of Spain! 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 18 
 
 In the spruce hack(j7'ound the clank of armor 
 and the flicker of approaching torches. There 
 is a nistle of great mi^nbers of men and animals 
 approaching .^ faint voices., orders^ and torches 
 behind and on hoth sides of the stage. Wind- 
 ing among the pines from the distant back- 
 ground come a group of Spanish soldiers^ led 
 by an almost naked Indian., with breech-clout 
 and a red forehead band., bow and pine torch. 
 Behind him a cloaked officer with mantle., 
 sword., gilt breast-plate^ and plume. Then a 
 soldier with a standard^ a friar, another India.7i 
 with a torch, and three or four more troopers 
 and officers with cross-bows, swords, and 
 helmets. 
 
 CoRONADo (the cloaked officer, in gilt arinor. He is 
 magnificent, hut a little pitiful throughout the 
 play.) : 
 Hold! 
 Cardenas (one of the captains; calling back) : 
 Hold! 
 (Trumpets in the woods.) 
 Voices in the Distance: 
 
 Hold! Hold! 
 (Coronado reaches behind him for the standard, 
 unfurls the heavily embroidered silk banner of 
 Spain, and plants it with his left hand, posing 
 
14 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 with his sword in his right, like the boy. The 
 torch-bearers drop naturally to the two sides 
 of the stage, and, until the end, the impression 
 is given that they tend their torches, dozing 
 silently at the front margins of the stage, 
 screened hy trees.) 
 
 COEONADO : 
 
 By conquest, these dominions, hill and plain, 
 I claim and occupy for Charles of Spain. 
 The groves, the torrents, and Cibola's towers; 
 The shaggy, hump-backed oxen, and the flowers — 
 Whate'er is rare and blood-stained, rich and brave; 
 All that men murder for and monarchs crave, 
 By sword and by the Virgin's grace to me, 
 I claim for his Most Catholic Majesty! 
 
 (Turning.) 
 Cardenas! Castaneda! Marcos! All! 
 Here we encamp, lest more from hunger fall. 
 Once more go post your sentries! Set the fires 
 
 alight! 
 No conquest of Quivira for tonight! 
 
 (The officers and soldiers salute and depart in 
 several directions. There are orders and noises 
 in the dark, and the gleam of fires in the wood.) 
 
 Cardenas: 
 Yes, captain! 
 
 Castaneda: 
 
 Yea! 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 15 
 
 Friar Marcos: 
 
 My Lord, I go to pray, 
 The saints may not withhold Qiiivira one more day! 
 (They are all gone.) 
 
 CoRONADO (after a moment, throiving off his pose and 
 leaning on his sioord) : 
 O Ooronado, fool I was, and stay, 
 Though centuries erode the hills away! 
 Four hundred years agone, and e'en this wood 
 Was seed or saplings when my army stood 
 Molded in flesh and panting up this height — 
 Four centuries, while mountains melt from sight! 
 And yet so vain does Coronado walk 
 That just the pine-smell and the water-talk 
 Prompt him to re-enact with solemn face 
 Pageants so old the stars have shifted place. 
 Oh, what a legion did I marshal then — 
 Cross-bows and cannon, jingling mules, and men 
 Baited by sordid dreams, crusading forth 
 To sack the Seven Cities of the North! 
 Tilting like some proud breaker for the land, 
 We slushed in silly ripples up the sand. 
 The fabled cities sunk to huts of clay. 
 Where naked paupers lolled the months away. 
 Tell me what venturer ever grasped his prize. 
 Or more than spread the book for others' eyes! 
 We scale the summits, always to unmask 
 Still loftier summits for another's task. 
 
 (Looking ahout.) 
 Once, in the years, I kindled here a fire 
 
16 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 That, like a sexton's candle in the choir 
 Of some gloom-towered cathedral, did impart 
 Small aid to vision, but did melt my heart. 
 The glen, the embers, seemed in my despair 
 The sweetest refuge God made anywhere. 
 And, summer after summer, when my breast 
 Heaves sea-like in the swell of old unrest, 
 I dream I gather up my clans some night 
 And march to set mine ancient fire alight. 
 
 (He finds the ashes of the fire, and nurses them 
 to a gloio.) 
 Here does it smolder till I come again — 
 An altar to the proud romance of Spain! 
 
 (He breaks the flagstaff over his knee, and feeds 
 the banner and the staff carefully to the flames, 
 which mount in a red flare.) 
 With fuel like this, O little western fire, 
 The blaze of venture never can expire^ — 
 The oak of gay Castile and arms of Spain 
 Broidered with blood of men and water-stain. 
 A Soldier's Voice (challenging) : 
 Hold! Who comes to Spain? 
 
 (A confused and indistinct answer; further chal- 
 lenges, and a soldier appears, with a torch and 
 a youthful prisoner, clad in a tattered Ameri- 
 can uniform of 1806; his feet bound in buffalo 
 skins, snow on his shoulders, and a skin cap 
 and musket.) 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 17 
 
 Soldier : 
 My general, a straggler from the dark. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Who are you, stranger? Whence did you embark? 
 Pike (a defiant soldier) : 
 
 Spaniard, Lieutenant Pike your service waits. 
 I bear the arms of the United States. 
 Who are you? Sentries that I post would feel 
 Unarmed in armor. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Coronado of Castile. 
 Pike: 
 
 I know your memory; but the balsam fir 
 
 Ha,s grown and perished where your footprints were. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 I know not of you, nor the flag you say. 
 
 These hills are Spain. The prudent keep away. 
 
 No firelight flickers here, save what I lit 
 
 In eons past, and I, by nursing it. 
 
 Maintain for youth, for poets, and the race 
 
 The glamour and romances of this place. 
 
 Such is my nation's part. I know you not. 
 
 Pike (advancing) : 
 
 Coronado, when your fire was dim, 
 
 1 plodded westward here and kindled him. 
 
 You gave the flame of Spain; I brought the stout 
 Heart-wood of Saxons, as it smoldered out. 
 Prom that great stream you never saw, my band 
 
18 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 struggled up prairie stream-beds in the sand, 
 Hungered and frost-lamed, for a nation's gain 
 That ponders still our mission and our pain. 
 Then from the prairie nothingness there broke 
 A sudden great Blue Peak. Our hopes awoke. 
 Through winter ranges on our naked feet 
 We labored, starving but for bison meat — 
 Sending as messages, our tale to tell, 
 Bones from the frozen feet of men who fell. 
 That peak my name attained, but never I! 
 It stands with our cold courage in the sky. 
 Come, comrade! Can this stripling nation share 
 No gleam of glory from your ancient flare? 
 Surely, these summits, and these bold stars, too, 
 Gleam to our youth for us no less than you! 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Young soldier, no adventurer can press 
 Another from his fire in wilderness! 
 It sinks. Come mend it! 
 
 Pike: 
 
 Yes. 
 (Advances to the fire.) 
 
 And make it glow 
 The brighter for the documents I throw — 
 Orders to make a new frontier, but now 
 Performed and written on a mountain's brow. 
 
 (The fire blazes red as he tosses in a bundle of 
 documents.) 
 
THE FTRE OF KOMANCE 10 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 I pondered, sir, as you drew near, unseen, 
 What slumbered in this room of evergreen 
 And fern — what here, 'mid all the majesty, 
 Seems speaking loudest of a world to be. 
 Pike: 
 
 I sense it, too. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 The spruce shapes into city towers. Here lurk 
 The sounds of people at their daily work. 
 Strange monsters whistle in the gorge afar, 
 And starlight twinkles where no planets are. 
 Pike: 
 
 I know. And sometimes in the morning blue 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Aye, throbbing, wide-winged birds I never knew. 
 Sentry (jumping to his feet in background) : 
 
 Hold! Who comes to Spain? 
 James (oif stage, in the thicket above to the right) : 
 
 To Spain or Mars, I little care! 
 
 I seek for orchids, and for moths, and rare 
 
 Shy birds that covey on the alpine slopes. 
 Sentry : 
 
 Hold, senor! 
 James : 
 
 Hush, soldier! For I came in hopes 
 
 To sprinkle shadows on the glen below — 
 
 To camp, in short, and to mend a fire I know. 
 
20 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 CORONADO: 
 
 Peace, sen.try! Stranger, here there bums a fire; 
 But few there are of mortals can aspire 
 To stoke it or the more to make it glow. 
 Though the world needs it. 
 James (enters. He is a scientist of 1820, imaginative, 
 eager, unstunted by our present specialization ; 
 in climbing costume, with a hatful of flowers, 
 a Jcnapsack, a pistol, and a staff) : 
 
 There's a tree I know 
 Grows hereabouts, and only here. It's dipped 
 In silver, and with yellowing cones is tipped. 
 Not sternest, no, nor loftiest of trees. 
 But loved of all mankind — the silver spruce. 
 Boughs plucked by understanding hands will loose 
 Sweet flames from yonder fire. 
 
 (He plucks a spruce bough and tosses it in. It 
 kindles the fire to a crimson flame again.) 
 CoRONADO (surprised) : 
 
 Who thus can make 
 The fire of slumbering romance awake? 
 James: 
 
 My name is James, a botanist — just James; 
 A grubber after bugs and roots and names; 
 Scorned by the world, but toiling to discern 
 The magic hid in nature, flower and fern. 
 Pike: 
 
 How came you here? Unwelcome fuel he feeds 
 A fire whose nourishment is venturous deeds! 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 21 
 
 James : 
 
 Say three men's lives ago, my friends, I came 
 Into this wilderness, with Long, to claim 
 The secrets from the hills, and read a tale 
 Of endless wonderland in hill and dale. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 No man can read in trees and sodden soil 
 What stirs his pulses and forgets his toil. 
 Valor and venture and the blood of man 
 Feed yonder fire. 
 
 James: 
 
 Perhaps deeds can. 
 But man is an insect, and, with tiny fears, 
 Creaks like a cricket into Nature's ears. 
 Learn, then, the real romance that lifts mankind 
 Out of the stumbling of the daily grind — 
 The whirl of universes, and the might 
 That spring can gather from mere gentle light, 
 The ways of wild things and the soul of trees! 
 These are the dramas and the tragedies. 
 Such is the fuel that yonder altar-flare 
 Devoured just now. I cast no bloodshed there. 
 
 CoRONADO (pondering) : 
 The fire did leap. 
 
 Pike (slowly) : 
 
 The fire did blaze. 
 
 CoROXADO (convinced) : 
 
 God wills 
 Not only we should harvest from the hills, 
 
22 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 And store that harvest for the world's delight. 
 We know 
 
 James (full of his subject, interrupting) : 
 
 Too little. World's delight, I say, 
 Is finding what the world has hid away. 
 
 (Picking flowers from his hat.) 
 Look, soldiers! Who would prophesy 
 A struggling surgeon, patientless, as I, 
 With smattering of botany and dry, 
 Circuitous names of rocks and strata stuff. 
 Could meet a summons — just by a chance e>nough- 
 To join a soldier in a silly task 
 Of seeing a desert that the Congress ask, 
 But build no hopes on; and then, journeying so, 
 Could enter, just a hundred years ago, 
 This house of magic, with a sky so new 
 The raindrops wash away its turquoise blue 
 And stain the blossoms with it? 
 (Showing a blue columbine.) 
 
 Days prepare 
 When men and children, who are unaware 
 That swords or soldiers ever had their hour, 
 Will find a sacrament within this flower! 
 Men call it columbine, a mountain dove. 
 I say — sky-crystal, shattered from above 
 By thunder. Camp-mates of the darkness, tell, 
 How come you by a fire I know so well? 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 23 
 
 CoRONADo (pompously) : 
 Francisco Vasquez Goronado, sir. 
 Captain of Spain and Spain's adventurer! 
 The fire is mine. 
 James : 
 
 I know the tale. 
 Pike: 
 
 And I 
 Am Zebulon Pike, who came as you. 
 
 James : 
 
 You lie! 
 (Drawing Ms pistol.) 
 I serve my country's honor. You betrayed 
 The uniform you wear, and westward made 
 A trail for treason. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 What is this? 
 Pike (sadly): 
 
 A tale. 
 
 COEONADO : 
 
 No taint shall touch my embers, or the pale, 
 Sweet wreaths distilled there. 
 James : 
 
 All men know 
 This creature ventured west to serve the low 
 Designs of Aaron Burr, and to divide 
 His country, and to butcher from its side 
 A western hostile empire. 
 
24 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Better spoil 
 My blaze, and leave to shadow and to toil 
 The world, than taint its ruddy glow 
 With treason! Guards! 
 
 (Cardenas, Castaneda, Marcos and the soldiers 
 steeping in the shadows leap from the hack- 
 ground and seize Pike.) 
 Pike (after a fruitless struggle): 
 
 Sefior, withold your arms! 
 Yon dreamer cannot prove his charge. He harms 
 A dumb-proud memory with gossip. 
 
 James : 
 
 No! 
 
 CORONADO: 
 
 Glory is gossip, if you name it so. 
 
 Only report and legend, they are fame. 
 
 Gossip is all there is to feed that flame. 
 
 It poisons what it feeds. 
 James (goes to kick the fire away) : 
 
 Cornel Strew about 
 
 The tainted embers! Let the fire go out, 
 
 And us depart! 
 Pike (interfering) : 
 
 No, no! The charge is false — I swear 'tis so! 
 
 Had I my papers left me, I could show 
 
 That I toiled hither, loyal in heart and thought, 
 
 Whate'er the powers who sent me may have sought. 
 James: 
 
 What papers? 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 25 
 
 Pike: 
 
 Oh, the documents I burned — 
 The missing orders history never learned 
 But built suspicion on. 
 
 COEONADO : 
 
 Before you came 
 He fed the fire with papers. 
 James (startled): 
 
 And the flame? 
 
 COBONADO : 
 
 The flame blazed high and clear. 
 James : 
 
 As high and clean 
 As when I casit my bough of evergreen? 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Yes, and for mine. And yet I know there springs 
 
 No flicker of romance from sordid things. 
 Pike (to James) : 
 
 Would any man for self or treason bear 
 
 Such agony of hunger? 
 James (hesitating) : 
 
 True, you wear 
 The badge of courage. 
 Pike: 
 
 Or with frozen feet 
 Plow on to where the sky and mountain meet 
 In whirlwinds, but to serve his country's will? 
 Pike was no traitor. Let the fire burn still! 
 
26 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 CoRONADO (half persuaded) : 
 
 Men die for nations who would not kneel down, 
 Nor wait their food an hour to gain a crown. 
 
 (Turning to a soldier holding Pike.) 
 Soldier, you won, if I remember right, 
 A mantle, cheating at the cards, one night. 
 Cardenas whipped you. Give the mantle here! 
 
 (The soldier hesitates.) 
 Quick! All things come to Coronado's ear. 
 And years avail not. 
 
 (He snatches a scarf from the soldier's shoulder.) 
 Holy Marcos, thou 
 Hast somewhere hidden in thy vestments now 
 A roll of parchment that purports as prayer. 
 Surrender it! The pages of it bear 
 A woman's name, and silly tokens prest 
 To lover's lips. 
 Marcos : 
 
 My Lord, I do protest! 
 
 (Handing.) 
 Peruse it! 
 
 COBONADO : 
 
 You know well I cannot trace 
 The words. But trees can read a lover's face; 
 And when, in prayer, you read these lines, they 
 
 paint 
 Hot sunsets on your temples — for a saint. 
 
THE FIRE OF EOMANCE 
 
 (Turning to the fire, and holding the paper and 
 scarf aloft.) 
 Here's sacrilege! Such falseness tests the chance. 
 If nought but pure devotion makes romance, 
 The fire will slumber, and this lad prove true. 
 But if it leaps, as common embers do, 
 When fed such fuel, the stalwarts lived in vain, 
 And Coronado seeks the tomb again. 
 Eternal fire! Here's falseness and deceit, 
 What say you? 
 
 (He feeds the scarf and paper to the fire. They 
 do not burn.) 
 Marcos : 
 
 God's Anointment, and the Sweet 
 Protection of the Virgin, I confess! 
 It's magic. 
 
 (Crossing himself and falling on his knees. The 
 soldiers cross themselves, startled, and retreat 
 away.) 
 
 Coronado: 
 
 les, 'tis magic — nothing less! 
 That ancient magic that the hills possess, 
 The spell of open places, and the kiss 
 Of mountains, and the awe of an abyss 
 On human frailty. 
 James (with his hand on Pike's shoulder): 
 Pike survives the test. 
 
28 THE FIKE OF ROMANCE 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Go, Marcos, and the others, to your rest! 
 Sweet slumbers! for the watch tonight is kept 
 By three who fail not. Tyre and Ilium slept 
 Guarded no better. 
 
 (Marcos, the officers and soldiers, in awe, depart 
 into the shadotvs.) 
 James (gathering the other two around the fire) : 
 
 Such watchmen for the world 
 Patrolled the sheep-folds when the night unfurled 
 In Asia; on its banner a bold star 
 That led those shepherds westward; and afar 
 They found a manger! 
 
 Pike: 
 
 Aye, such watchmen pace 
 O'er crowded cities everywhere, and place 
 In hands of sleeping children gorgeous dreams 
 That tint the walls of squalor. 
 
 James: 
 
 Watchmen so 
 Must tend the cross-roads, that the world may go 
 Not hurrying and lanternless astray. 
 
 Pike: 
 
 Come comrades! While we watch the night away, 
 We'll build the flames to mount the hills and shed 
 On tardy mortals plodding home to bed. 
 
 (There are shouts in the darkness down the creek 
 bottom to the left, and parts of a song.) 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 29 
 
 Song : 
 
 Shovel away, then tramp all day, 
 
 And shovel again awhile! 
 Hopin' every creek will open up a streak 
 0' glory in a gravel bed 
 
 An' make your little pile. 
 Live on flapperjacks an' hope; 
 Never see a bed or soap; pullin' on a halter-rope 
 
 A burro every mile! 
 Mighty queer to me that you ever see 
 
 An old prospector smile! 
 
 (Refrain) 
 
 Hi, Jenny! Hi, Jenny, 
 
 Get up an' hike. 
 Sure in the gulch ahead 
 
 We'll make a strike. 
 I'll own an op'ry-house. 
 
 You'll feed on hay, 
 Carrots and angel-cake, 
 
 Three times a day! 
 
 Jackson (below to the left) : 
 
 Hey, Kit! Hey, Drum! The daw-gone critters! Kit! 
 
 That there's a porcupine! Come out of it! 
 
 Law, fifty million cotton-tails, and still 
 
 Every last one needs chasing up the hill! 
 
 Old-timer, you might jest as well go set 
 
 And rest! Won't see them dogs till daylight yet! 
 
 (He is heard to unload his pack and resume his 
 song.) 
 
30 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 CoRONADO (challenging) : 
 
 Hold! Who goes to Spain? 
 Jackson: 
 
 To Spain? Who goes to church? How should I 
 know? 
 
 I'll make Auraria, perhaps, if it don't snow, 
 
 By springtime. Pardner, who the hell are you? 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 The shadows stir with strangers — old and new 
 Invaders. Sentry, shout to yonder song, 
 And bid it clothe itself and come along. 
 Sentry (shouting, from the grove heside the stage) : 
 Coronado bids you come and share 
 His campfire! 
 Jackson (climbing into sight up the creek) : 
 
 Well, a campfire's mighty rare 
 In these parts. Pleased to jine you, till my hounds 
 Quit treein' the moonbeams! Maybe there's some 
 
 grounds 
 Of coffee in your pot? Been stewin' mine 
 So many times, it's faded. 
 
 (Jackson, a prospector with a tin cup, a belt, ax, 
 knife, and gun, enters. Aside, seeing Coronado) : 
 Holy smoke! 
 The Prince of Whales! 
 Coronado (loftily): 
 
 Perhaps the guard who spoke 
 Above there has a draft to quench your heat. 
 Go seek him. He will share his bison meat. 
 We dine not. 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 31 
 
 Jackson: 
 
 Thanks, your Grace! But let it go! 
 I baked a beaver by the creek below. 
 
 (Aside.) 
 'Taint manners, no, nor safe, to ask, I guess, 
 The names of them that trail the wilderness. 
 
 (He stands by the fire warming Ms hands, sets 
 dovjn his gun and pack, but recovers and con- 
 ceals a buckskin bag.) 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 You wander late. 
 
 Jackson: 
 
 I what? Oh, sure I do! 
 We built a cabin — me and t'other two — 
 Down by the two flat hills, just where the creek 
 Gits tired of fallin' down and starts to sneak 
 Thin down the prairie. Like as not you saw 
 The roof, a-oomin' up here. No? This thaw 
 Maybe set up the creek a-boomin', and the shack 
 Is floatin' round Missou' till I get back. 
 That's where my folks are. Jackson is my name. 
 
 James : 
 
 I knew an Andrew Jackson. Any kin? 
 
 Jackson: 
 
 Don't know him, but it's like as not have been. 
 Kit Carson is my cousin. Well, we come 
 A-huntin' elk one day — just Kit and Drum, 
 My dogs, and those two other men, and me; 
 And elk was plenty, but I ached to see 
 
32 THE FIKE OF EOMANCE 
 
 The hills. I left them up here in a park 
 Of pines, a-shootin', and I waded snow 
 Till I came stumblin' on the creek below, 
 'Bout one day's travelin' up. 
 (Aside.) 
 
 Come pretty near 
 A-ttellin' what I saw. 
 
 (Aloud.) 
 
 And so I'm here. 
 Starved back to home, 'most frozen. And next week 
 I guess I'll travel down to Cherry Creek 
 And see the traders. 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 Pike, toss yonder sticks! 
 Jackson: 
 
 Have you folks got a paper? 'Fifty-six — 
 Two years ago — the last one that I see. 
 I'll stir the fire, sir. 
 
 (He is about to mend it.) 
 James (protesting) : 
 
 Let the blazes lie! 
 
 CORONADO : 
 
 That fire is sacred, like the place we sit. 
 Boughs you could heap would never kindle it. 
 Jackson: 
 
 Well, what the ! Pardner, any man's as good 
 
 As any other in the open wood. 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 33 
 
 CoRONADO (drawing his sword) : 
 
 Profane the fire, and I will make you feel 
 The Spanish blade! Nay, as in old Castile 
 They cleanse the heretics, to yonder tree 
 I'll bind and burn you to humility. 
 Depart! 
 Jackson (defiant, but awed) : 
 
 I'll go, old greaser! But I'll throw 
 A log or two on yonder, just to show 
 I ain't alarmed particular. 
 
 (He stoops for a log; raises it. Coronado 
 flourishes his sword, but James catches Coro- 
 nado's uplifted arm and holds it.) 
 James: 
 
 Withhold! 
 I'll teach him gently. 
 
 (Drawing Jackson to the fire.) 
 Hunter in the urn 
 Of those hot embers, what do you discern? 
 Jackson (gazing appalled; then slowly, after a pause) : 
 I see three little high-decked ships that breast 
 Seas far too tall; a figure leaning west 
 Upon a prow, alone with waves. The ash 
 Palls inward. Now from another ocean dash 
 Big headlong breakers, and an armored man 
 Stands on a headland, tattered and dismayed 
 At such a strange wide sea, but unafraid. 
 Now soldiers toiling over heated sand, 
 And rows of grave-mounds in a thirsty land. 
 
34 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 COEONADO : 
 
 See how the blazes to a banner spread 
 
 Their gold and crimson! Gone! With flames of red 
 
 And starry sparks, another flag of blue 
 
 Flame flutters in the smoke. What's this? What 
 
 new 
 Flag veils the flag of Spain? 
 
 James (to Jackson): 
 
 Have your hands made 
 A fire that marched such visions in parade? 
 Jackson (puzzled): 
 
 No, I will go. 
 James: 
 
 'Tis better. 
 (Jackson reverently gathers his gun and pack, 
 and then thoughtfully begins to climl) up into 
 shadowy background. Suddenly he wheels, 
 drops his load and, filled with understanding, 
 marches back to the fire where the others still 
 stand.) 
 Jackson: 
 
 Wait! Around 
 
 A little fir tree in the gorge I found 
 
 An amulet that makes men bold. I lit 
 
 A fire upon a gravel bed, and it 
 
 Tha-wed out the pebbles; and I scooped and panned 
 
 Nine treaty-cups; and, yellowing in the sand, 
 
 When I poured out the cup, was gold! 
 
 (He drops his cap, takes a little sack -from his 
 belt, and pours through his fingers a stream of 
 gold dust.) 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 35 
 
 Gold! Though I meant to keep the secret, show, 
 My gold, what images of men you throw 
 Into the fire! 
 
 (He throws in the gold dust. The flame mounts 
 high and red, illuminating the forest. For a 
 moment all o'bserve the conflagration in awe.) 
 
 COEONADO : 
 
 Yea, stranger, till the world is ashen old 
 Romance will leap to flame for love and gold. 
 James: 
 
 I see the play of commerce in the flare — 
 The ox-teams, cities building, and the glare 
 Of furnaces — the pride of industry 
 That heartens men. 
 
 COKONADO : 
 
 Fire of eternity! 
 Bla^e on! The years have fagots they provide 
 To mend the altar fires they love. Abide! 
 (There is a halloo in the distance. Then another.) 
 The figures, except the sleeping Boy Scout, 
 hecoyne indistinct as the light centers on him. 
 The fire sinks again to embers and a thread of 
 smoke. The hoy wakes, rubs his eyes, and rec- 
 ognizes the voice. He gradually realizes that 
 he is found hy a rescue party. Half rising, 
 his gaze searches the glen for the figures of his 
 vision, hut he finds only grotesque shadows. 
 He gains his feet, hears another faint call and 
 
36 THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 
 
 starts uncertainly up the stream. When half 
 way up the hill he reinemhers that he has for- 
 gotten his treasures; runs hack; gathers helmet^ 
 cup^ gtm-stock^ and horns in his arms^ and dis- 
 appears in dusk at the haek. 
 
 Silence and darkness. Then the glow of the 
 swamp-lights and the same voice as before the 
 figures appeared. 
 A Voice in the Trees: 
 
 Once in the ages, torn by his lot, 
 
 Gay Coronado left and forgot 
 
 One Spanish sentry high on a hill. 
 
 That Spanish sentry watches there still. 
 
 Down through the ages, last of his host, 
 
 That Spanish soldier clings to his post. 
 
 Sudden, one evening, twinkle and glow 
 
 Lights of a city clustered below! 
 
 "Ah," said the sentry, "fireflies, I think. 
 
 Gather the sweets of some meadow to drink." 
 
 So thought the sentry, till, from the dust. 
 
 Up through the pine trees came one little gust. 
 
 "Soldier," it whispered, "scattered by chance. 
 
 These are the coals of the Fire of Romance!" 
 
THE FIRE OF ROMANCE 37 
 
 The music wanes. The green glow sinks^ and 
 the chanting voice trails ojf in a repetition of 
 the last tioo lines. The artificial lights which 
 only have mude the glen a stage^ die out. The 
 audience is left in the woods. 
 
\FFNER PRESS, DENVER 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 018 393 140 4