Another interesting question is where the well-known tune came from, since neither of Thorp's editions (1908, 1921) contains a tune.

The song was recorded in the late '20s or early '30s - I forget by whom.
Slim Critchlow, a well-known radio cowboy in Utah, I believe, used the same song on his 1960s album, "The Crooked Trail to Holbrook." Critchlow, who supplied a few texts and tunes to Lomax in the '30s, tried to be truer to the old songs than most radio cowboys, but he probably got this one second-hand.

The first and fourth lines of the tune resemble a 4/4 version of "Son of a Gamboleer."