Little Joe The Wrangler

Cisco Houston

He was little Joe, the wrangler,

He'll wrangle nevermore

His days with the remuda, they are o'er

Was a year ago last April

That he rode into our camp

Just a little Texas stray and all alone



His saddle was a Texas kak,

Made many years ago

With an OK spur on one foot lightly slung

His bedroll in the cotton sack

Was loosely tied behind

And his canteen o'er his saddle horn was hung



He said if we would give him work

He'd do the best he could

Though he didn't know straightup about a cow

So the boss he cut him out a mount

And he kindly put him on

'Cause he sort o' liked this little kid somehow



He learned to wrangle horses,

And know 'em all by name

And get them in by daybreak, if he could

To follow the chuckwagon

And always hitch the team

And help the Cocinero rustle wood



Well, we'd driven down the Pecos,

The weather being fine

We camped on the south side in a bend

When a norther started blowin,

And we called out every man

For it'd taken all us hands to hold 'em in



Well, Little Joe, the wrangler,

Was called out with the rest

Although the kid had scarcely reached the herd

When the cattle they stampeded,

Like a hailstorm 'long they fled

And we was all a' ridin for the lead



Amid'st the streaks of lightin

We could see a horse ahead

T'was little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead

He was ridin old Blue Rocket

With a slicker o'er his head

A tryin to check the cattle in their speed



At last we got them millin'

And kind'a quieted down

And the extra guard back to the wagon went

But one o' them was missin',

And we knew it at a glance

Was our little Texas stray, poor wrangling Joe



Next mornin', just at daybreak,

We found where Rocket fell

In a washout twenty feet below

And beneath his horse, smashed to a pulp,

His spur had rung the knell

Was a little Tex