This is from Don Edward's album Saddle Songs
ZEBRA DUN
We was camped out on the plains at the head of the Cimarron.
Along came a stranger and he stopped to argue some.
He looked so very foolish and began to look around,
we thought he was a greenhorn, just escaped from town.
We'd asked if he'd had breakfast and he had not had a sniff.
We opened up the chuckbox and told him, "help yourself."
He took a little beefsteak, a biscuit, and some beans,
and he then begun to talk about the foreign kings and queens.
He talked about the spanish war, and the fighting on the seas,
with guns as big as beefsteers, and ramrods as big as trees.
He talked about ol' Paul Jones, a fightin' sonuva gun,
and he said he was the grittiest cuss that ever pulled a gun.
Such an educated feller, his thoughts just come in herds;
he astonished all us punchers with his jaw-breaking words.
He just kept right on a-talking till he made the boys all sick,
and we began to look around for how to play a trick.
He said he lost his job out on the Santa Fee,
and he was going out across the plains to strike the 7D.
He didn't say how come it, just "some trouble with his boss,"
He said he'd like to borrow a nice fat saddle hoss.
This tickled all the boys to death, they laughed down in their sleeves,
And said he could have a horse as fresh as he would please.
So Shorty grabbed a lasso, and roped the Zebra Dun,
and led him to the stranger as we waited for the fun.
Now ol' Dunny was an outlaw, he had grown so awful wild;
he could paw the white out of the moon and he could jump for a mile.
And he always stood right still, just like he didn't know,
until he was saddled and a-ready for the go.
Now the stranger hit the saddle and ol' Dunny quit the earth.
He went straight up in the air for all that he was worth.
A-bawlin' and a-squallin' and having a wall-eyed fit,
with his hind feet perp'n'dic'lar and his front ones in the bit.
Now he could see the tops of trees with each and every jump.
The stranger he was growed there, just like a camel's hump.
And he sat up there upon him, and he curled his black mustache,
just like a summer boarder, a-waitin' for his hash.
Now he thumped him in his shoulders, and he spurred him when he whirled.
He showed us funky punchers he was the wolf of this whole world.
And when he had dismounted, once again upon the ground,
why, we knew he was a thoroughbred, not a gent from town.
Now the boss he was a-standin' and a-watchin' all the show.
He walks right up to him, and he asks him not to go.
"If you can use a lasso like you rode the Zebra Dun,
then you're the man I've looked for ever since the year of one."
Well he could use a lasso and he didn't do it slow,
the cattle they stampeded, he was always on the go.
A one thing and a sure thing I've learned since I was born,
every educated feller, he ain't a plumb greenhorn. |
