According to contemporaneous newspapers, the Methodist Rev. Mulkey, of Corsicana, Tex., became a prominent Texas evangelist in the late 1880s.


"The New Era" (South Haven, Kans.), Sept. 5, 1891, quoting the Caldwell Journal:

                      THE FINAL ROUND-UP

On the body of Charles Bryant, who was killed Sunday night by Ed Short, was found a prescription, $18 in money and in his pocket of his shirt was the following piece of poetry which he probably composed:

Last night as I laid on the prairie
   Looking up at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
   Would drift to that Sweet Bye Bye.

Oh, the trail to that bright, mystic region
   Is narrow and dim, so they say,
But the one which leads to perdition
   Is posted and blazed all the way.

Oh, they say there will be a grand “round-up,”
   And the cowboys, like others, will stand,
To be “cut” by the riders of judgment,
   Who are posted and know every brand.


I wonder if there will be many,
   Who will be at the great final sale,
Who might have been rich and had plenty
   Had they known of that dim, narrow trail.

When the Judge gets down his old brand-books,
   Piled high as your head in a stack,
I am afraid that the final decision will be:
   “O, cowboys, you stand a poor hack.”

But I hope there will be some stray cowboys,
   Unbranded and claimed by none nigh,
Who will be mavericked by the riders of Judgment
   And shipped to that Sweet Bye and Bye.”