Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp | Page 2

purport to be
an anthology of Western verse. As its title indicates, the contents of the
book are limited to attempts, more or less poetic, in translating scenes
connected with the life of a cowboy. The volume is in reality a
by-product of my earlier collection, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier
Ballads." In the former book I put together what seemed to me to be the
best of the songs created and sung by the cowboys as they went about
their work. In making the collection, the cowboys often sang or sent to
me songs which I recognized as having already been in print; although
the singer usually said that some other cowboy had sung the 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