A song long overdue for extended DT treatment. Most all of Fife & Fife's stanzas appeared first - in rather different order and with some verbal differences - in Lomax's 1910 "Cowboy Songs" - the ultimate source, it would seem, for most recorded versions.

As I recall, N. Jack Thorp's 1921 text is identical to Lomax except for being one or two stanzas short.

Jack Lee may have been a song pirate and a fake cowboy, but the text above is one of the most innovative and authentic *sounding* non-bawdy versions collected. He deserves some credit for that.

In his own book of cowboy songs, "The Hell-Bound Train," Arkansas puncher Glenn Ohrlin has a few good words for Lee as well.

Rather surprisingly, Ohrlin offers no version of this song. Sandburg has one under the unique title of "The Lone Star Trail," and Larkin offers a two texts a couple of years later - one of them with an unusual tune and verse structure.

Lomax and Lomax 1934 give many additional stanzas and three or four tunes.

Randolph-Legman prints a couple of bawdy versions (with some surprising song-history), as do Ed Cray and Guy Logsdon.

Additional couplets, clean and otherwise, undoubtedly remain to be corraled. 'Catters, take it away.