More of an addendum than an addition, for what it may or may not be worth.

Recently looked this up in the database to refresh my memory (what's left of it, that is) & noticed a note regarding the wording of the last line of the second verse, so I pulled out the vinyl (Northern Journey)and I hear it as:
"A hunger took their fight away and no one else was slain".

Also several other differences from the version in the database to the one on the record:
Second Verse:
Line 1: sounds like "wild bunch to these ears.
Line 3: "When the posse found them there in the lonely cabin"
Verse 3:
Line 1: "January eighteen eighty one"
Line 3: "And the son killed...".

Again, I could be hearing this wrong- don't have the sheet music in front of me.

Best, Greg

---

For sake of comparison, here is the DT version. -Joe Offer-

FOUR RODE BY
(Ian Tyson)

Willie Palmer's stallion was no twenty dollar cayuse
And when the wild ones stole him he hightailed it into town
Ussher in those days was keeping order in the district
But before he'd ridden thirty miles the McLean boys shot him down

cho: Four rode by
Rode through here
Three Mclean boys and that wild Alex Hare
They were armed
All were armed
It was them I'd have known them anywhere

A shepherd known as Kelly saw the wild one as they passed
They shot him with a rifle and took his watch and chain
When the posse found him in the lonely cabin
A hunger took their pride away and no one else was slain*

They hung the boys in January eighteen eighty three
First time in that province that they'd strung up brothers three
And their sons killed nineteen Germans cross the seas back in seventeen
One thing that's for damned sure they're a wild old family

*been trying for 20 years to figure this line out, may have been hearing it
wrong
This song is vintage Tyson, and the Instrumental bridge by Daddy Bones
(John Herald)
still gives me chills.
@country @murder
filename[ FOURRODE
AS
Apr98