The Robert Service Collection includes Service’s north country favorites including Grin, The Pines, Quatrains, Unforgotten, Fighting Mac, My Madonna, The Lone Trail, The Reckoning, The Parson’s Son, The Younger Son, The Three Voices, Music in the Bush , The Call of the Wild, The Land God Forgot, The Land God Forgot, The Law of the Yukon, The Spell of the Yukon, The Low-Down White, The March of the Dead, The Rhyme of the Remittance Man, The Cremation of Sam McGee, The Heart of the Sourdough, The Song of the Wage-Slave, The Men That Don’t Fit In, The Lure of Little Voices, The Little Old Log Cabin, and The Shooting of Dan McGrew.
The Shooting of Dan McGrew takes place in a saloon during the of the 1890s gold rush. The three characters: Dan McGrew, a rough-neck prospector; McGrew’s sweetheart, Lou, a formidable pioneer woman; and a mysterious, weather-worn stranger who wanders into the saloon where Lou and McGrew are among a crowd of drinkers and gamblers. The stranger buys drinks for the crowd and plays a sad, melancholy song on the saloon’s piano. From the poem the stranger seems to have had a past with Lou and McGrew—and has come to settle a grudge. Gunshots break out in the darkened salon. When the lights come on it’s discovered that McGrew and the stranger have killed each other—and the Lady that’s known as Lou.
