O, I am a Texas cowboy,
Far away from home;
If ever I get back to Texas
I never more will roam.
Montana is too cold for me
And the winters are too long
Before the round-ups do begin,
Our money is all gone.
Take this old hen-skin bedding,
Too thin to keep me warm;
I nearly freeze to death, my boys,
Whenever there’s a storm.
And take this old “Tarpoleon”
Too thin to shield my frame–
I got it down in New Mexico
A-dealin’ a Monte game.
Now to win these fancy leggins
I’ll have enough to do
They cost me twenty dollars
The day that they were new.
I have an outfit on the Musselshell,
But that I’ll never see,
Unless I get sent to represent
The circle or D. T.
I’ve worked up in Nebraska
Where the grass grows ten feet high,
And the cattle are such rustlers
That they seldom ever die;
I’ve worked up in the sand hills,
and down upon the Platte,
Where the cowboys are good fellows
And the cattle always fat;
I’ve traveled lots of country,–
Nebraska’s hills of sand,
Down through the Indian Nation,
And up the Rio Grande;–
But the Bad lands of Montana
Are the worst I’ve ever seen
The cowboys are all tenderfeet,
And the dogies are all lean.
If you want to see some bad lands,
Go over on the Dry;
You will bog down in the coulees
Where the mountains reach the sky.
A tenderfoot to lead you
Who never knows the way;
You are playing in the best of luck
If you eat more than once a day.
Your grub is bread and bacon,
And coffee black as ink;
The water so full of alkali
It is hardly fit to drink.
They will wake you in the morning,
Before the break of day
And send you on a circle
A hundred miles away.
All along the Yellowstone
‘t is cold the year around,
You will surely get consumption
By sleeping on the ground.
Work in Montana
Is six months in a year;
When all your bills are settled,
There is nothing left for beer.
Work down in Texas
Is all the year around;
You will never get consumption
By sleeping on the ground.
Come, all you Texas cowboys,
And warning take from me,
And do not go to Montana
To spend your money free.
But stay at home in Texas,
Where work lasts the year around;
And you will catch consumption
By sleeping on the ground.
Photo by Jim Urquhart
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