The hills are high in Caribou —
The air is clear, the skies are blue;
But where a black ledge seams the ground
The yellow witch's tracks are found,
And men grow drunk with ravishment
Once they have caught the witch's scent.

The aspens on the mountain side
Were green when Carlo brought his bride,
The cherry-cheeked Selina, to
The haunted hills of Caribou.

" You better take your man and go, "
The old wives warned, " before the snow.
The yellow witch hides in these hills,
And gets our men against their wills. "

Selina shook her bold, black head.
" My Carlo will not leave my bed
And hammer on a speckled door
A-huntin' for a yellow whore.
He's signed up with the sawmill crew,
He's safe enough in Caribou.

" Who minds the talk of wrinkled crones,
Their skin a-stickin' to their bones,
Their men folks might go trailin' round
A-chasin' witch tracks in the ground;
But my man's mine! I'm not afraid
I'll lose him to a stealin' jade. "

" Child, we were all the same as you,
When we were brought to Caribou.
We know, as only old wives can,
The curse of havin' half a man.
We know the end of these old tracks —
The blinded eyes — and broken backs. "

But when the mountain side grew red
And pulsing as a wanton's bed
Young Carlo's eyes flamed with the fire
Of an unhallowed, mad desire.
Selina knew his passion meant
" Her man " had caught the witch's scent.

Before the first snow veiled the crest,
Like lace upon a woman's breast,
She saw him leave the sheltering mills
To roam among the siren hills.

But no man yet has come to know
Which way the yellow witch may go.
She burrows deep in porphyry rocks
And bars her trail with granite blocks.
So Carlo did, as all men do
That chase the witch of Caribou.

At last upon a sloping crest,
As rounded as a woman's breast,
Beneath a snow of winding lace,
He tracked her to her hiding place.
Here, in an evil blackened niche,
He mated with the yellow witch.

At dawn, Selina found him there
Strangled by a golden hair.