Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads. Various

of Vagus, all in the public square;

      The mail coach had arrived, the post boy met me there.

      He handed me a letter that gave me to understand

      That the girl I loved in Texas had married another man.

      So I read a little farther and found those words were true.

      I turned myself all around, not knowing what to do.

      I'll sell my horse, saddle, and bridle, cow-driving I'll resign,

      I'll search this world from town to town for the girl I left behind.

      Here the gold I find in plenty, the girls to me are kind,

      But my pillow is haunted with the girl I left behind.

      It's trouble and disappointment is all that I can see,

      For the dearest girl in all the world has gone square back on me.

      WHOOPEE TI YI YO, GIT ALONG LITTLE DOGIES

      As I walked out one morning for pleasure,

      I spied a cow-puncher all riding alone;

      His hat was throwed back and his spurs was a jingling,

      As he approached me a-singin' this song,

      Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies,

      It's your misfortune, and none of my own.

      Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies,

      For you know Wyoming will be your new home.

      Early in the spring we round up the dogies,

      Mark and brand and bob off their tails;

      Round up our horses, load up the chuck-wagon,

      Then throw the dogies upon the trail.

      It's whooping and yelling and driving the dogies;

      Oh how I wish you would go on;

      It's whooping and punching and go on little dogies,

      For you know Wyoming will be your new home.

      Some boys goes up the trail for pleasure,

      But that's where you get it most awfully wrong;

      For you haven't any idea the trouble they give us

      While we go driving them all along.

      When the night comes on and we hold them on the bedground,

      These little dogies that roll on so slow;

      Roll up the herd and cut out the strays,

      And roll the little dogies that never rolled before.

      Your mother she was raised way down in Texas,

      Where the jimson weed and sand-burrs grow;

      Now we'll fill you up on prickly pear and cholla

      Till you are ready for the trail to Idaho.

      Oh, you'll be soup for Uncle Sam's Injuns;

      "It's beef, heap beef," I hear them cry.

      Git along, git along, git along little dogies

      You're going to be beef steers by and by.

      THE U-S-U RANGE

      O come cowboys and listen to my song,

      I'm in hopes I'll please you and not keep you long;

      I'll sing you of things you may think strange

      About West Texas and the U-S-U range.

      You may go to Stamford and there see a man

      Who wears a white shirt and is asking for hands;

      You may ask him for work and he'll answer you short,