For what it's worth, I went to "Cowboy and Western Songs" by Austin and Alta Fife to see what they had to say about "Tying a Knot in the Devil's Tail". The Gail Gardner lyrics they use don't contain anything like "cow pyrography". Instead, it's "I'm tired of the smell of burning hair and 'lows I'm goin' to town..." It does have the "Sierry Petes" though.

Another interesting word in the lyric is "rodeer", as in "Ole Sandy\ Bob and Buster Jig (sic) / Had a rodeer camp last fall."

(Published by Clarkson N. Potter, 1969)

Sourdough