Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp | Page 2

song to him and that he did not know where it had originated. For example, one night in New Mexico a cowboy sang to me, in typical cowboy music, Larry Chittenden's entire "Cowboys' Christmas Ball"; since that time the poem has often come to me in manuscript form as an original cowboy song. The changes--usually, it must be confessed, resulting in bettering the verse--which have occurred in oral transmission, are most interesting. Of one example, Charles Badger Clark's "High Chin Bob," I have printed, following Mr. Clark's poem, a cowboy version, which I submit to Mr. Clark and his admirers for their consideration.
In making selections for this volume from a large mass of material that came into my ballad hopper while hunting cowboy songs as a Traveling Fellow from Harvard University, I have included the best of the verse given me directly by the cowboys; other selections have come in through repeated recommendation of these men; others are vagrant verses from Western newspapers; and still others have been lifted from collections of Western verse written by such men as Charles Badger Clark, Jr., and Herbert H. Knibbs. To these two authors, as well as others who have permitted me to make use of their work, the grateful thanks of the collector are extended. As will be seen, almost one-half of the selections have no assignable authorship. I am equally grateful to these unknown authors.
All those who found "Cowboy Songs" diverting, it is believed, will make welcome "The Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp." Many of these have this claim to be called songs: they have been set to music by the cowboys, who, in their isolation and loneliness, have found solace in narrative or descriptive verse devoted to cattle scenes. Herein, again, through these quondam songs we may come to appreciate something of the spirit of the big West--its largeness, its freedom, its wholehearted hospitality, its genuine friendship. Here again, too, we may see the cowboy at work and at play; hear the jingle of his big bell spurs, the swish of his rope, the creaking of his saddle gear, the thud of thousands of hoofs on the long, long trail winding from Texas to Montana; and know something of the life that attracted from the East some of its best young blood to a work that was necessary in the winning of the West. The trails are becoming dust covered or grass grown or lost underneath the farmers' furrow; but in the selections of this volume, many of them poems by courtesy, men of today and those who are to follow, may sense, at least in some small measure, the service, the glamour, the romance of that knight-errant of the plains--the American cowboy.

J. A. L.

The University of Texas,
Austin, July 9, 1919.

CONTENTS


PART I. COWBOY YARNS

OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS
THE SHALLOWS OF THE FORD
THE DANCE AT SILVER VALLEY
THE LEGEND OF BOASTFUL BILL
THE TEXAS COWBOY AND THE MEXICAN GREASER
BRONCHO VERSUS BICYCLE
RIDERS OF THE STARS
LASCA
THE TRANSFORMATION OF A TEXAS GIRL
THE GLORY TRAIL
HIGH CHIN BOB
TO HEAR HIM TELL IT
THE CLOWN'S BABY
THE DRUNKEN DESPERADO
MARTA OF MILRONE
JACK DEMPSEY'S GRAVE
THE CATTLE ROUND-UP


PART II. THE COWBOY OFF GUARD

A COWBOY'S WORRYING LOVE
THE COWBOY AND THE MAID
A COWBOY'S LOVE SONG
A BORDER AFFAIR
SNAGTOOTH SAL
LOVE LYRICS OF A COWBOY
THE BULL FIGHT
THE COWBOY'S VALENTINE
A COWBOY'S HOPELESS LOVE
THE CHASE
RIDING SONG
OUR LITTLE COWGIRL
I WANT MY TIME
WHO'S THAT CALLING SO SWEET?
SONG OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
A COWBOY'S SON
A COWBOY SONG
A NEVADA COWPUNCHER TO HIS BELOVED
THE COWBOY TO HIS FRIEND IN NEED
WHEN BOB GOT THROWED
COWBOY VERSUS BRONCHO
WHEN YOU'RE THROWED
PARDNERS
THE BRONC THAT WOULDN'T BUST
THE OL' COW HAWSE
THE BUNK-HOUSE ORCHESTRA
THE COWBOYS' DANCE SONG
THE COWBOYS' CHRISTMAS BALL
A DANCE AT THE RANCH
AT A COWBOY DANCE
THE COWBOYS' BALL


PART III. COWBOY TYPES

THE COWBOY
BAR-Z ON A SUNDAY NIGHT
A COWBOY RACE
THE HABIT
A RANGER
THE INSULT
"THE ROAD TO RUIN"
THE OUTLAW
THE DESERT
WHISKEY BILL,--A FRAGMENT
DENVER JIM
THE VIGILANTES
THE BANDIT'S GRAVE
THE OLD MACKENZIE TRAIL
THE SHEEP-HERDER
A COWBOY AT THE CARNIVAL
THE OLD COWMAN
THE GILA MONSTER ROUTE
THE CALL OF THE PLAINS
WHERE THE GRIZZLY DWELLS
A COWBOY TOAST
RIDIN' UP THE ROCKY TRAIL FROM TOWN
THE DISAPPOINTED TENDERFOOT
A COWBOY ALONE WITH HIS CONSCIENCE
JUST A-RIDIN'!
THE END OF THE TRAIL


PART I

COWBOY YARNS

The centipede runs across my head,
The vinegaroon crawls in my bed,
Tarantulas jump and scorpions play,
The broncs are grazing far away,
The rattlesnake gives his warning cry,
And the coyotes sing their lullaby,
While I sleep soundly beneath the sky.

OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS

OUT where the handclasp's a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
That's where the West begins;
Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship's a little truer,
That's where the West begins;
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there's laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the world