Cactus Nell is not Eskimo Nell transplanted to Texas nor is she the unfortunate of "The Lonesome Death of Cactus Nell". She comes to a better end than either. From "Bawdy Ballads and Lusty Lyrics", 1950, ed. John Henry Johnson, author not given:

THE BALLAD OF CACTUS NELL

Cactus Nell, in the gaudy gown
Of a dance hall jade in a border town,
Had tried her wiles on a man who seemed
To read her smiles as he stood and dreamed;
He paid no heed to the tell-tale leer
Of the dance hall queen as she lingered near,
But turned and walked to another place
Removed from the taunt of her painted face.

The she-thing paled with a tang of hate
At the slight implied by his measured gait;
Each step seemed telling as words might say
He despised her breed and the tinseled way;
And she raged within as the dance hall clan
Observed the move of the silent man,
And she made a vow that the man would pay
For the public slight in the dannce hall way.

A whispered word, and a hurried plan
Was told in the ears of Diamond Dan,
Who hitched the guns in the belt he wore,
As he wandered out on the dance hall floor;
He stopped a bit as an idler would,
Quite close to the place where the stranger stood,
And Nell with the hate of her creed and race,
Stepped close and spat in the tall man's face.

Then silence fell and the place was still -
Like the stage scene set for a sudden kill -
As the stranger stood and calmly viewed
The leering face of the woman lewd;
Then his eyes were turned till they rested on
Her consort near with his six-guns drawn;
And a grin crept up on his thin cold lips
And his hands rested calm on his holstered hips.

"I reckon," he said, "there has been a day
When a mother loved you in a mother's way,
An' I reckon she prayed as her baby grew
That she'd never be a thing like you;
An' so for her, an' the child she bore,
I have only pity and nothing more,
But as for you" - turning to Diamond Dan -
"I'm callin' you, hombre, man to man."

The call was quick as a lightning flash,
And the shots rang out in a single crash,
And Diamond Dan slumped down to the floor
As the stranger walked toward the open door;
And Cactus Nell stared into empty space,
The blood all gone from her throat and face,
And deep in her heart a something stirred,
And her pale lips moved, but no one heard.

Well, the fiddles still squeal in the border town,
And the faro wheels spin as the chips flop down,
And the old-timers look in vain for Nell,
One-time queen of the road house hell;
But stories are afloat, and the card sharps say
She's living in Butte in a humble way;
Married ? Sure, and they say her man
Is the man who called the play on Diamond Dan!