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Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

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LITTLE JOE, THE WRANGLER (p. 167) It's little Joe, the wrangler, he'll wrangle never more, His days with the remuda they are o'er; 'Twas a year ago last April when he rode into our camp,— Just a little Texas stray and all alone,— On a little Texas pony he called "Chaw." With his brogan shoes and overalls, a tougher kid You never in your life before had saw. His saddle was a Texas "kak," built many years ago, With an O.K. spur on one foot lightly swung; His "hot roll" in a cotton sack so loosely tied behind, And his canteen from his saddle-horn was swung. He said that he had to leave his home, his pa had married twice; And his new ma whipped him every day or two; So he saddled up old Chaw one night and lit a shuck this way, And he's now trying to paddle his own canoe. He said if we would give him work, he'd do the best he could, Though he didn't know straight up about a cow; So (p. 168) the boss he cut him out a mount and kindly put him on, For he sorta liked this little kid somehow. Learned him to wrangle horses and to try to know them all, And get them in at daylight if he could; To follow the chuck-wagon and always hitch the team, And to help the cocinero rustle wood. We had driven to the Pecos, the weather being fine; We had camped on the south side in a bend; When a norther commenced blowin', we had doubled up our guard, For it taken all of us to hold them in. Little Joe, the wrangler, was called out with the rest; Though the kid had scarcely reached the herd, When the cattle they stampeded, like a hailstorm long they fled, Then we were all a-ridin' for the lead. 'Midst the streaks of lightin' a horse we could see in the lead, 'Twas Little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead; He was riding Old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head, A tryin' to check the cattle in their speed. At last we got them milling and kinda quieted down, And the extra guard back to the wagon went; But (p. 169) there was one a-missin' and we knew it at a glance, 'Twas our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe. The next morning just at day break, we found where Rocket fell, Down in a washout twenty feet below; And beneath the horse, mashed to a pulp,—his spur had rung the knell,— Was our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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