The song of the frost on the runners
And the Northern Lights high over all;
The trees in the bend of the river,
The streams that nobody has spanned;
The whisper of gold, the story half told,
All this by the Devil was planned.

When the trap of the Devil was ready
Widespread went the whisper of gold,
And the white men stampeded like cattle,
There never was tie that could hold.
The first mad rush to the Northland
When the scum from the four ends of earth
Came in with a rush, a scramble, a crush
Like scrap in a fusing pot hurled.

They came all untaught and not ready,
Spurred on in the mad rush for gold;
They died here unsung and uncared for
Of famine, and scurvy and cold.
They had the same laws as the wolf pack,
Stay up, for you die if you fail,
And the paths to the Northern placers
Are marked by their graves on the trail.

The towns that they started were plague spots
With brothels and dance halls aglare,
With cribs, faro banks and roulette wheels
And phonographs adding their blare.
All traps for the young and unwary,