Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider

Subject: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 01:05 AM

Lyr. Add: Bucking Bronco
Version by James Hatch

Beware, all fair maidens
Who live on the Platte,
Beware of the cowboy
Who wears a white hat.

He will toss you a kiss,
Then away he will go,
Recrossing the plains
On his bucking bronco.

He has a sweetheart in Texas,
Depend upon that,
Who worked the bright star
For his cowboy's big hat.

She awaits his coming
All anxious to know
Just how he has dared
With his bucking bronco.

He holds off the marshall
While having his fun.
If crowded too closely
He swaps ends with his gun.

Swinging into his saddle,
Away he will go
While hanging his spurs
Into his bucking bronco.

The cowboy is generous,
His courage oft tried;
A path seeming dangerous
He surely will ride.

But he squanders his money
Wherever he may go,
While he shoots up a town
On his bucking bronco.

The bronco's his treasure
In which he takes pride.
That range has no limit
O'er which he will ride.

Most honest and truthful
To friend or to foe,
Bold knight of the plains
On his bucking bronco.

James Hatch: "While I was at Platte City, Nebraska, in 1882 with a trail herd, I composed 'The Bucking Bronco.' I was with the Ed Nicholson outfit and was horse wrangler. With the same outfit was Billie Davis, a San Antonio cowboy and also a wrangler. ---He made up the tune, by whistling, to go with 'The Bucking Bronco.'"
Quoted from J. Frank Dobie, 1928, "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," in "Follow de Drinkin' Gou'd," Publ. Texas Folk-Lore Society, no. 7, pp. 170-173.

The song titled "My Love Is a Rider," in the DT, is the version by N. Howard (Jack) Thorpe, published in 1908 by him as "Bucking Broncho" in the booklet "Songs of the Cowboys," Estancia, New Mexico, pp. 26-27, without comment. In 1921, Thorp said that Belle Starr was the composer, but this remark probably was to attract publicity for his new edition. With much discussion, pp. 121-134, the song is treated in a book by the Fifes titled "Songs of the Cowboys," by N. Howard (Jack) Thorpe, Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon," by Austin E and Alta S. Fife, 1966, Clarkson N. Potter Inc. Publisher (Not to be confused with Fife and Fife, "Cowboy and Western Songs," 1969).

Another cowboy, Charlie Johnson, claims the version, "The Cowboy's Hat."

Lyr. Add: The Cowboy's Hat
Version by Charlie Johnson

My love is a vaquero,
He rides on the Platte,
Has a sunburnt moustache
And a broad-brimmed hat.

He will treat you so clever
With honest respect,
That you never will regret
Meting his broad-brimmed hat.

The last time I saw him
It was early in spring;
Hre was riding a bronco
A high-headed thing.

Now all you gay ladies,
Wherever you are at,
Beware of the cowboy
With a broad-brimmed hat.

Music given, reproduced in Fife and Fife, 1966, p. 125.
Charlie Johnson, balladist with a large repertoire of songs, started working cattle in 1877 and was trail-herding by 1880. He claims to have made up several other songs- "The Cowboy's Stroll" was based on the Confederate song, "The Rebel Prisoner." From J. Frank Dobie, ibid., pp. 164-171.

Others have claimed authorship and there are many versions; see Lomax, Ohrlin, Larkin and others. The music given by Larkin is that most often used: Margaret Larkin, "Singing Cowboy," 1931; Oak Publications, 1963, "My Love Is a Rider," pp/ 58-60.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 02:40 AM

The two versions Q posted are quite different from the two in the Digital Tradition. We have a tune for this DT entry (click). Are the other tunes pretty much the same, Q?
I'll see if I can transcribe a tune or two tomorrow. I think I have all the books that were referenced.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 01:14 PM

The midi pretty well matches the tune given by Larkin, which seems to be the most used by singers, but is a mite slow. She matches it with Thorp's 1908 version.
Take a look at the music given by Ohrlin in "Yhe Hell-Bound Train," p. 34, which I think is better.
I noted that "My Love Is a Rider" in the DT actually is Thorp's version of 1908 and was published as "Bucking Broncho"; I think words to to this effect should be added to the DT notes.

Subject: Lyr Add: JOHNNY RINGO (from Katie Lee)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 02:50 PM

"Johnny Ringo," was published by Katie Lee, FAC 173, University of Arizona Folklore Archives. Sung in her album, "Spicy Songs for Cool Knights," Specialty SP-5000. Lee's version also recorded by Carolyn Hester, "The Badmen," Columbia Records Legacy Collection L2L-1011.

The following from Katie Lee, "Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle," pp. 108-109, 204-206, with music.

Lyr. Add: JOHNNY RINGO
Katie Lee version

My love is a rider, wild horses he breaks,
He promised he'd quit it all for my sake.
He sold off his saddle, his spurs and his rope,
There'll be no more ridin', that's what I hope.

Ting-a-lingo Johnny Ringo'
Let's sing oh yes by jingo,
Ting-a-lingo, Johnny Ringo,
Let's sing-o yes by yee* by jingo

The first time I saw him was early last spring
A ridin' a bronco, a high-headed thing.
One foot he tied up and the saddle throwed on
With a jump and a holler, he's mounted and gone!

My love's got a gun, now he's gone to the bad.
This makes Uncle Sammy feel pretty damn sad.
He gave me some presents, among them a ring.
What I gave in return is a far better thing!

Now all of you girlies, wherever you ride,
Beware of my cowboy who swings the rawhide;
He'll court you, he'll love you, he'll leave you and go
A ridin the trail on his buckin' bronco.

* yodelled.
Katie Lee wrote this version, with the chorus to commemorate Johnny Ringo, grandson of Col. Coleman Younger of Kentucky. Ringo was a killer, shot in Tombstone, AZ, by an unknown assailant. He was tall, handsome, cultured, a church-goer, ladies' man and heavy drinker (data from Katie Lee, who gives references, p. 108, "Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle."

This verse from Shorty Mac, given to Katie Lee, (p. 204) shows the content of some early versions:

My love is a rider, he rides me at will
And each time he does he gives me a thrill
The first time I saw it was early one Spring,
Like a hair-over brand, a big red and blue thing.


"The Bucking Bronco" first appeared in print in Stewart Edward White, "The Rawhide," a story in McClure's Magazine 24, Dec. 1904, pp. 175-176, but only three stanzas. The next printing was by Thorp in his 1908 booklet, "Songs of the Cowboys" (From Randolph, "Ozark Folksongs," vol. 2, pp. 228-230, reprint ed.).
The song seems to have been composed by many cowboys and cowboy-singers; its beginnings are lost.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 03:15 PM

Q: You beat me to it with those references. Note well: Fife & Fife's
edition of Thorp also includes a couple of bawdy stanzas from a college student who said he'd learned the song from a "sheepherder in Idaho." They strongly resemble two from Oscar Brand's "Bawdy Western Songs" version, issued in 1960. Fife & Fife also have one bawdy stanza from the Lomax papers, if memory serves. A full bawdy text, again resembling Brand's, appears in Barre Toelken's "Morning Dew and Roses."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 03:25 PM

Wait a minute!! Didn't Lorne Greene sing "Johnny Ringo"? All I can recall is, "Johnny Ringo was a rider..." Is it the same song?
Or could it be that I'm all wrong, and that it's "Johnny Yuma was a rider," and that it's a totally different song...
-Joe Offer, he of failing memory-

---

Well, here's The Rebel - Johnny Yuma, as sung by Johnny cash for the TV show, so that's not the one. The more that I think of it, the Lorne Greene song was just called "Ringo," and probably isn't the same song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 03:46 PM

Joe: Different song entirely - and Greene only recited while western music swelled in the background. The year, I think, was 1966.

Katie Lee's "Johnny Ringo" is the familiar "Bucking Bronco" song with Lee's specially composed chorus that goes something like, "Ting-a-ling-a-lingo,Johnny Ringo!," etc." Why? Who knows? But her book, mentioned by Q, is essential reading for any fan of cowboy songs.

Subject: Lyr Add: MY LOVE IS A RIDER (Idaho version)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 06:50 PM

Guy Logsdon, in the Preface to "The Whorehouse bells Were Ringing," pp. xix-xx, reproduces the song collected by the Fifes from a student, who said she got it from a cowboy in Idaho in 1961. Only part is given in Fife and Fife, 1966.

Lyr. Add: My Love Is a Rider
"Idaho version"

My love is a rider, wild horses he'll break,
But he promised to give it up just for my sake.
With his foot in the stirrup, his saddle boots on
With a hop and a swing he is mounted and gone.

The first time I saw him 'twas early in Spring,
He was riding a bronco, a high-headed thing,
And he laughed and he waved as along he did go
And he wished me to look at his bucking bronco.

He made me some presents, among them a ring,
But the present I gave him was a far greater thing,
'Twas my young maidenhead, I'll have you all know,
He has won it by riding his bucking bronco.

Twas near the arroyo he first laid me down,
He was dressed for the roundup and I wore a gown,
Then he wiped off his chaps so the stain wouldn't show,
And he turned and rode off on his bucking bronco.

My love had a gun that was sturdy and long,
But he wore it to visit the lady gone wrong,
Though once it was strong and it shot straight and true,
Now it wobbles and buckles and it's red, white and blue.

Young maidens, take warning, where'er you reside,
Beware of a cowboy who swings his rawhide.
He'll love you, he'll lay you, then one day he'll go
In the Spring up the trail on his bucking bronco.

Subject: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCHO (from Lomax)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 11:38 PM

Lyr. Add: Bucking Broncho
Lomax 1910

1. My love is a rider, wild bronchos he breaks,
Though he's promised to quit it, just for my sake.
He ties up one foot, the saddle puts on,
With a swing and a jump he is mounted and gone.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908 - in the DT as "My Love
Is a Rider," unattributed)

The first time I met him, 'twas early one spring,
Riding a broncho, a high-headed thing.
He tipped me a wink as he gaily did go;
For he wished me to look at his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

The first time I saw him 'twas late in the fall,
Swinging the girls at Tomlinson's ball.
He laughed and he talked as we danced to and fro,
Promised never to ride on another broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

He made me some presents, among them a ring;
The return that I made him was a far better thing;
'Twas a young maiden's heart, I'd have you all know;
He's won it by riding his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908)

My love has a gun, and that gun he can use,
But he's quit his gun fighting as well as his booze;
And he's sold him his saddle, his spurs and his rope,
And there's no more cow punching, and that's what i hope.
(Not in Thorp, 1908. See note with next verse)

My love has a gun that has gone to the bad,
Which makes poor old Jimmy feel pretty damn sad;
For the gun it shoots high and the gun it shoots low,
And it wobbles about like a bucking broncho.
(Not in Thorp, 1908. Modified from one of the
more bawdy versions. Compare with next to last verse of
the "Idaho version," posted above)

Now all you young maidens, where'er you reside,
Beware of the cowboy who swings the rawhide;
He'll court you and pet you and leave you and go
In the spring up the trail on his bucking broncho.
(Identical with Thorp, 1908.)

Fife and Fife, in their 1966 expansion on Thorp's "Songs of the Cowboys," reproduce the two additional verses from Lomax in footnote 20, p. 124, with the comment "Because they have become standard, despite their vulgarity, ...."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: BUCKING BRONCO (My Love Is a Rider)
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 08:42 PM

It's been more than a year. Anybody out here ever hear an overtly bawdy version of this song ?

Subject: Lyr Add: THE COWBOY'S HAT / THE BUCKING BRONCO
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 09:56 PM

No, dang it! But here are a couple collected by J. Frank Dobie.

Lyr. Add: The Cowboy's Hat A
(or The Bucking Bronco)

My love is a vaquero,
He rides on the Platte,
Has a sunburnt mustache
And a broad-brimmed hat.

He will treat you so clever
With honest respect,
That you never will regret
Meeting his broad-brimmed hat.

The last time I saw him
It was early in spring;
He was riding a bronco,
A high-headed thing.

Now all you gay ladies,
Wherever you are at,
Beware of the cowboy
With the broad-brimmed hat.

Version of Charlie Johnson, in "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," J. Frank Dobie, 1928, pp. 170-171 with music, Publications of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, Number VII, Follow de Drinkin' Gou'd.

Lyr. Add: The Cowboy's Hat B
(or The Bucking Bronco B)

Beware, all fair maidens
Who live on the Platte,
Beware of the cowboy
Who wears the white hat.

He will toss you a kiss,
Then away he will go,
Recrossing the plains
On his bucking bronco.

He has a sweetheart in Texas,
Depend upon that,
Who worked the bright star*
For the cowboy's big hat.

She awaits his coming
All anxious to know
Just how he has dared
With his bucking bronco.

He holds off the marshall
While having his fun.
If crowded too closely
He swaps ends with his gun.

Swinging into his saddle,
Away he will go
While hanging his spurs
Into his bucking bronco.

The cowboy is generous,
His courage oft tried;
A path seeming dangerous
He surely will ride.

But he squanders his money
Wherever he may go,
While he shoots up a town
On his bucking bronco.

The bronco's his treasure
In which he takes pride.
That range has no limit
O'er which he will ride.

Most honest and truthful,
To friend or to foe,
Bold knight of the plains
On his bucking bronco.

* An embroidered star often ornamented hat, boots, gauntlets, saddle, and other accoutrements of the "Lone Star" cowboys.
Version by James Hatch, written while "trail driving in 1882;" San Antonio, TX. "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," 1928, J. Frank Dobie, pp. 170-173, loc. cit. above.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:38 PM

Well, five years later we still don't know anything more. I should have pointed out in '04 that the "Idaho version" posted by Q from the Fifes via Logsdon is virtually identical to the version sung (and presumably written) by Oscar Brand on his "Bawdy Western Songs" album of 1960.

Evidently no 'Catters, dedicated as they are, have ever heard a ribald variant of this supposedly widespread cowboy song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:45 PM

I've heard that this has been attributed to Belle Starr. I think the first time I heard this was on the RCA re-issue of cowboy songs. It was sung by Millie and Dorothy Good who billed themselves as The Girls of the Golden West.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 11:44 PM

Thorp made that claim, which is doubtful. See the first post.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:40 AM

The papers of collectors like Thorp, Lomax, Dobie and Randolph must contain unexpurgated versions of many such songs, but one would have to check them out in the corresponding repositories. Randolph at least has published unexpurgated versions of some songs, and you can also check Logsdon's The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing. I'm not trying to score points in drinking bouts with rugby players, so I don't seek out songs with gratuitous crudity.

Or you could do what the cowboys did: dream up your own verses. Couldn't be any worse, doesn't take much imagination, and you wouldn't be far off from collected versions, from the samplings I've seen.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 10:01 AM

Hey, Artful, if I wanted to dream up my own lyrics, I could be a rap star! But seriously, the idea is to set the historical record straight. If the Fifes did their job (and they certainly were very meticulous), they found only one bawdy version of this song among the Lomax papers. Logsdon offers nothing new.

A century ago, the illusion was that folksongs were all very wholesome. Nowadays many people seem to want to believe the opposite, that there was a reserve of orgiastic lyrics that everybody except the prudes who ran things was singing all the time.

Both views, it seems to me, are innacurate. But we can't know the truth without looking for it.

At the moment, it seems that there was indeed a coherent bawdy version of this song, though my guess is it was rather more down to earth than the typical "rugby song." My guess also is that it was not widely sung or else we would find more traces of it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:56 PM

The Fife's archive is held by Utah State. It might have more information.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 03:27 AM

Oh c'mon, people rarely wrote down bawdy songs (particularly when most people could hardly write); they just sang them, and others learned them that way. The only printed records we have of most songs, prior to the recording era, are broadsides and songbooks, where songs were routinely expurgated even when dealing with salacious situations.

And consider the situation of the average cowboy: a hormone-riddled guy in his teens to mid-20s stuck out on the range or ranch with hardly any women available, lots of time to think about them, and a need to build himself up to the other guys. Of course songs like this were plenty filthy!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco (My Love Is a Rider)
From: GUEST,Kathleen "Belle Starr" Hudson
Date: 29 May 09 - 11:30 PM

Well, when Belle appears in my life, which she often does, she claims this song as hers! Robert Oerman and Mary Bufwack also give her credit in their book on women in country music. Ah...so much for oral history. I have a book of interviews with women in Texas music, and Belle just shows up when I start talking.....sporting her whip and gun and black velvet. www.kathleenhudson.net

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 14 - 07:22 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Aug 14 - 07:46 PM

To pick up where I left off in '09, John Lomax for one wasn't afraid to write down some bawdy lyrics, and his son Alan was even readier to do so. They didn't publish them, but it looks as though most of the bawdry they left in manuscript has now been published.

Then there was Robert W. Gordon, whose "Inferno" collection came from all over the United States and Canada. And Herbert Canfield, who collected at roughly the same time.

Amongst all this material, are just three or four disconnected bawdy stanzas of "Bucking Bronco" plus Brand's LP version which, as I said long ago, he seems mainly to have written himself.

My untestable theory is that the clean version came first.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 14 - 11:58 AM

There are as many tunes for this as a cat has whiskers. These are given, with the texts, in the book by Fife and Fife entitled "Songs of the Cowboys," N. Howard (Jack) Thorp, Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon."

XI-B; The Cowboy's Hat, or The Bucking Broncho (Dobie, More Ballads). P. 125.

XI-G: My Lover's a Rider (Hull, in Kansas State Hist. Soc.) pp. 56-57.

XI-H: "My Love Is a Rider (Larkin, in Oak) pp. 46-47

XI-L: "Bucking Bronco (FAC I 509 sung by Kathy Degel, Kansas.

Texts without tunes-
Thorp, Lomax, James Hatch from Dobie, Lomax d. 5620, Hobo News, Watson (WPA, NM).

The Fife's comment, "There are several melodies... although common elements prevail. The music typically reveals tendencies that support the texts they accompany. ... there is a frequent and persistent return on the strong beats of the measure to the same note. Such a melodic structure could easily suggest the rhythmic, stiff-legged bucking of a bronco.
"Dobie's tune (Text B) is very significant, though not conforming to the statement above. Also important are the Hull ((Text G ) and Larkin (Text H) texts, the latter being the best setting of the most usual melody."

Lists of Commercial and Field Recordings, pp. 133-134.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 14 - 12:20 PM

"Vulgar" Stanzas:
Lomax 1910, 1916

My love has a gun, and that gun he can use,
But he's quit his gun fighting as well as his booze;
And he's sold him his saddle, his spurs, and his rope,
And there's no more cow punching, and that's what I hope.

My love has a gun that has gone to the bad,
Which makes poor old Jimmy feel pretty damn sad;
For the gun it shoots high and the gun it shoots low,
And it wobbles about like a bucking broncho.

Anon., from Idaho (In Thorp, Fife and Fife, reference above.

'Twas near the arroya he first laid me down
He was dressed for the round-up, and I wore a gown
And he wiped off his chaps so the stain wouldn't show
And he turned and rode off on his bucking broncho.

My love had a gun that was dirty and long
But he wore it to visit the lady gone wrong
Though once it was strong and it shot straight and true
Now it wobbles and buckles and it's red, white and blue.

Young maidens, take warning, where'er you reside
Beware of a cowboy who swings the rawhide
He'll love you, he'll lay you, then one day he'll go
In the spring up the trail on his bucking bronco.

From Wm. L. Alderson Papers, Univ. Arizona Library (FAC II 736)

Lie still ye young bastard
Don't bother me so
Your father's off bucking
Another bronco.

The book does not include Brand, etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 14 - 01:04 PM

Lyr. Add: BUCKING BRONCO
Lomax d.5620, "cowboy in Cheyenne," JL 19

My love is a cowboy, wild horses he rides
Away down in Texas my lover resides
The first time I saw him, 'twas early in spring
A ridin' a bronco, a high-headed thing.
2
The next time I saw him 'twas late in the fall
Swinging the pretty girls at Flannigan's ball
'Twas there while dancing at night to and fro
He wanted to ride on my bucking bronco.
3
He gave me some presents, among them a ring
I gave him a present, a far better thing
This present I gave him I want you to know
'Twas the pride of all maidens, my bucking bronco.
4
Now come all ye fair maidens where'er you reside
Beware of the guy that throws the rawhide
He will rope you and throw you and when you're fast tied
Bown on your bare belly, Lord God how he'll ride!
5
He'll not ride you bare and he'll not ride you slow
But he'll spur a big hole in your bucking bronco.

XI-D, p. 127, text only. (Reference below)

Lomax- Numbered dossiers ...Texas Historical Society; JL- Collections - cowboy and western materials entered in the Fife Coll. under JL ..

Songs of the Cowboys, N. Howard ("Jack") Thorp; Variants, Commentary, Notes and Lexicon by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife; Clarkson N. Potter, New York.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 14 - 01:58 PM

BELLE STARR (1848-1889)

Thorp suggested that she wrote "Bucking Bronco" but this is doubtful.

Here is a bit of her biography:
Born in Missouri, Myra Maybelle Shirley. Her father operated an inn and a livery stable. She was educated at the Carthage Female Academy, in Classics and piano.

After a Union attack on Carthage, the family moved to Scyene, Texas, where Belle met Jesse James and the Youngers. The Shirleys had strong Confederate sympathies.
Married Jim Reed in 1966. Bore a child, Rosie (Pearl). Belle Starr was a crack shot, and carried two pistols.
Jim was wanted for murder, and they moved to California, where she had a second child, James Edwin. Moved to Texas and associated with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family involved in cattle and horse thievery, and whiskey trading. Jim was killed in Paris, TX.
In 1880, she married the Cherokee named Sam Starr. In 1883, Belle and Sam were charged with horse theft; she served nine months in prison.
In 1886, Sam Staff and Officer Frank West killed each other in a gun fight.
In 1889 she was ambushed and killed.

(About 1888, my grandfather, then about 12 years old, watched her play poker, at which she was expert.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bucking Bronco / My Love Is a Rider
From: GUEST,Guest Jerry T
Date: 01 Jul 18 - 06:07 PM

The version I head off a 78 record my parents had went

Belle Star is a rider wild broncos she breaks
but she promised to quit it just for my sake
She ties up one foot and the saddle puts on
with a swing and a jump she is mounted and gone

last stanza

Now all you young cowboys where ere you beside
beware of the gal when she swings the rawhide
She'll court you and pet you the off she will go
on the trail anytime there's a bucking bronco.

I do not remember who sang it but I never knew there was a different version until I started looking for it lately. Now it looks like it was not the original at all.