It was the time that the Long Divide
Blooms and glows like an hour-old bride;
It was the days when the cattle come
Back from their winter wand'rings home;
Time when the Kicking Horse shows its teeth,
Snarls and foams with a demon's breath;
When the sun with a million levers lifts
Abodes of snow from the rocky rifts;
When the line-man's eyes, like the lynx's, scans
The lofty Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

Round a curve, down a sharp incline,
If the red-eyed lantern made no sign,
Swept the train, and upon the bridge
That binds a canon from ridge to ridge.
Never a watchman like old Carew;
Knew his duty, and did it, too;
Good at scouting when scouting paid,
Saved a post from an Indian raid--
Trapper, miner, and mountain guide,
Less one arm in a lumber slide;
Walked the line like a panther's guard,
Like a maverick penned in a branding-yard.
"Right as rain," said the engineers,
"With the old man working his eyes and ears."

"Safe with Carew on the mountain wall,"
Was how they put it, in Montreal.
Right and safe was it East and West