Episode: 1808
Title: HPR1808: David Whitman reads 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew' written by Robert W Service
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1808/hpr1808.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:31:30

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This in HPR episode 1888 titled, David Whitman reads,
The Shooting of Tanmadru, written by Robert W. Service.
It is hosted by David Whitman and is about 8 minutes long.
The summary is for his birthday, David Whitman recites the Robert W. Service Island,
The Shooting of Tanmadru.
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The Shooting of Tanmadru, by Robert W. Service.
A bunch of boys were booping it up in a Malamute saloon.
The kid that handles the music box was hitting a ragtime tune.
Back at the bar in a solo games, had dangerous Tanmadru,
and watching his luck was his lighter love, the lady that's known as Lue.
When out of the night, which was 50 below, and into the dine and glare,
there stumbled a minor fresh from the creek's dog dirty and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a
louse, yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
and he called for drinks for the house. There was none good place to stranger's
face, though he searched ourselves for a clue, but we drank his health,
and the last to drink was dangerous Tanmadru.
There's men that somehow grip your eyes and hold them hard like a spell,
and such was he, and he looked to me like a man who lived in hell.
With a face most hair and a dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
as he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figuring who he was and wondering what he'd do,
and I turned my head, and there watching him was a lady that's known as Lue.
His eyes went rubbering around the room, and he seemed in kind of a days
to let last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The ragtime kid was having a drink, and there was no one else on the stool,
so the stranger stumbles across the room and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin's shirt that was glazed with dirt, he sat, and I saw him sway,
then he clutched the keys with his talon hands, my god, but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the great alone when the moon was awful clear,
and the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silent shoe most could hear,
with only the hall of the timber wolf, as you camp there in the cold,
a half dead thing in a stark dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold.
While high overhead, green yellow and red, the northern light swept in bars,
then you've a hunch with the music men, hunger and might in the stars,
and hunger not are the belly kind that's banished with bacon and beans,
but the dying hunger of lonely men for a home, and for all that it means.
For a fireside far from the cares that are, for walls and a roof above,
but oh, so cramful of cozy joy and crowned with a woman's love,
a woman's dearer than all the world, and true as heaven is true.
God, how ghastly she looks through her rouge, the lady that's known as Lou.
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft you could scarce here,
but you felt that your life had been looted clean of all the once held dear.
That someone had stolen the woman you loved, and her love was a devil's lie,
that your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
It was a crowning cry of a harsh despair, and it thrilled you through and through.
I guess I'll make it spread misery, said dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost dies away, then it bursts like a pent-up flood,
and it seemed to say, repay, repay, and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
and the lust awoke to kill to kill, then the music stopped with a crash,
and the stranger turned in his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way.
In a buckskin's shirt, it was glazed with dirt, he sat, and I saw him sway.
Then his lips went in kind of a grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm.
And boy said, he, you don't know me, and none of you carried damn,
but I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
one of you is the hound of hell, and that one is Dan McGrew.
And I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
and a woman screamed, and the lights went up, two men lay stiff and stark.
Bitched on his head, and pump full of lead, was dangerous Dan McGrew,
or the man from the creeks laid clutching to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger with craze was hooch, and I'm not denying it so.
Not as wise as a lawyer guy is, but strictly between us two,
the woman that kissed him, and pinched his poke, was a lady that's known as Lou.
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