Randolph reports a similar song from the novel, "A two-Gun Cyclone," by B. E. Denton, 1927, p. 142.
A Missouri text by Randolph was published in 1930 in "The Arcadian Magazine."
Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, vol. 2, p. 199-203.

THE COW GIRL
Sung by Howard Spurlock, KY, recorded by A. and E. Lomax 1937

A pretty fair maiden all out on the plains,
Who helped me herd cattle through hail storm, and rains.

She helped me herd cattle whatever were done,
She'd drink her corn whiskey from the cold bitter cup.

She'd drink her corn whiskey and swing her lasso,
As fine as a lily, as white as the snow.

We camped in the canyon in the fall of the year,
To feed Uncle Sam's soldiers a herd of fat steers.

I taught her the language of a cowboy's command,
To hold her six-shooter in each little hand;

To hold a six-shooter and never to run,
As long as a bullet was let in her gun.

The Indians broke over us one dark stormy night,
Sprang from the valley, sprang out for a fight;

Sprang from the valley with a gun in each hand,
"Come all you brave cowboys, let's save our dear land."

It thundered, it lightninged and down fell the rain,
Along came a bullet and dashed out her brains.

I left her layin' in a furrin land,
And how I done it I can't understand.

In a grave that I dug way out in the West,
The cow girl sleeps in the home of the blest.

Archive of Folk Song, Library of Congress.
No. 64, p. 140, no musical score.
Austin and Alta Fife, 1970, Ballads of the Great West; American west Publishing Co., Palo Alto.