By responding to the last post, I am acting stupidly, but the nonsense has to be remarked and Dr. Hoy's scholarship defended.
Who is Dr. Hoy?
Dr. Hoy is a reviewer and manuscript consultant for several scholarly presses, including the universities of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Hawaii, and several journals.

He is on the Board of Trustees, Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, and the Board of Directors, Kansas State Historical Society. He is a proposal referee for the US Governments NEH humanities programs. He has lectured widely, at universities in England, United States and Australia.

His published research extends from a dissertation on Medieval drama in York, to a history of rodeo.
His published books are mostly are on western history, and his two volumes (with Tom Isern) on "Plains Folk," discussing the peoples and traditions of the area from Texas to the Canadian Prairies, are classics.

You also seem to be ignorant about F. H. Maynard, a well-known cattleman and western entrepreneur, who retired to Denver and lived in the most prestigious club in that City. His "Tom Sherman's..." was published there in a book of songs, now very rare. I doubt that you have seen his text! I have yet to see the original. It certainly hasn't appeared in Mudcat, which has a late version.

Maynard's story will appear in detail in the forthcoming book by Hoy (Univ. Oklahoma Press), "The Winning of the Wild, the Adventures in Prose and Poetry, of F. H. Maynard, An Old Time Cowboy."

Your remark that Maynard, in the 1870s, could lift somthing from Willie McTell is beyond belief! Moreover, all of the poems and songs, from the Unfortunate Rake to The Cowboy's Lament, as we know them, like many folk clusters, are re-writes and pastiches. You obviously know little of the American songs. The Bad Girl's Lament, etc., are well known in North America, and have been collected from Canada to Texas. And the tune? Even songs of the false lovers cluster have used it (English "False Young Man"= Canadian "As I Walked Forth in the Pride of the Season," etc.