Little Joe, the Wrangler

Lyrics

[Verse 1] Little Joe, the wrangler, will never wrangle more His days with the remuda, they are done 'Twas a year ago last April when he joined the outfit here Just a little Texas stray and all alone [Verse 2] 'Twas late in the evening when he rode up to the herd On a little Texas pony he called Chaw With his brogan shoes and overalls a harder-looking kid You never in your life had seen before [Verse 3] His saddle was a Southern kack built many years ago An O.K. spur on one foot lightly hung With his hot roll in a cotton sack so loosely tied behind And a canteen from his saddle horn he'd slung [Verse 4] He said he had to leave his home, his daddy'd married twice His new ma whipped him every day or two So he saddled up old Chaw one night and lit a shuck this way Thought he'd try and paddle his own canoe [Verse 5] He said if we would give him work, he'd do the best he could Though he didn't know straight up about a cow So the boss he cut him out a mount and kindly put him on He sorta liked this little stray somehow [Verse 6] Taught him how to wrangle horses and learned to know them all And round 'em up by daylight if he could And trail the old chuckwagon and always hitch the team And help the cosinero rustle wood [Verse 7] We'd rode down to Red River an the weather had been fine We were camped down on the south side in a bend When a norther commenced blowing and we doubled up our guards It took every one of us to hold them in [Verse 8] Oh, little Joe the wrangler was called out with the rest Now scarcely had the kid got to the herd When the cattle they stampeded, like a hailstorm on they flew And all of us was riding for the lead [Verse 9] Amid the streaks of lightning there was one horse up ahead It was little Joe the wrangler in the lead He was riding Old Blue Rocket with his slicker 'bove his head He was trying to check the leaders in their speed [Verse 10] At last we got'em millin' and kind of quietened down And the extra guards back to the camp did go But there was one a-missin' and we could see it at a glance Was our little Texas stray poor Wrangler Joe [Verse 11] Next morning just at sun up, we found where Rocket fell Down in a washout twenty feet below Beneath his horse, smashed to a pulp, his horse had ran the knell For our little Texas stray, poor Wrangler Joe