age,
The best of counsel did engage,
To see if something could be done
To save his disobedient son.

So, farewell, mother, do not weep,
Though soon with demons I will sleep,
My soul now feels its mental hell
And soon with demons I will dwell.

* * * * *

The sheriff cut the slender cord,
His soul went up to meet its Lord;
The doctor said, "The wretch is dead,
His spirit from his body's fled."

His weeping mother cried aloud,
"O God, do save this gazing crowd,
That none may ever have to pay
For gambling on the Sabbath day."

LITTLE JOE, THE WRANGLER

It's little Joe, the wrangler, he'll wrangle never more,
His days with the _remuda_ they are o'er;
'Twas a year ago last April when he rode into our camp,--
Just a little Texas stray and all alone,--
On a little Texas pony he called "Chaw."
With his brogan shoes and overalls, a tougher kid
You never in your life before had saw.

His saddle was a Texas "kak," built many years ago,
With an O.K. spur on one foot lightly swung;
His "hot roll" in a cotton sack so loosely tied behind,
And his canteen from his saddle-horn was swung.
He said that he had to leave his home, his pa had married twice;
And his new ma whipped him every day or two;
So he saddled up old Chaw one night and lit a shuck this way,
And he's now trying to paddle his own canoe.

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,
For he sorta liked this little kid somehow.
Learned him to wrangle horses and to try to know them all,
And get them in at daylight if he could;
To follow the chuck-wagon and always hitch the team,
And to help the _cocinero_ rustle wood.

We had driven to the Pecos, the weather being fine;
We had camped on the south side in a bend;
When a norther commenced blowin', we had doubled up our guard,
For it taken all of us to hold them in.
Little Joe, the wrangler, was called out with the rest;
Though the kid had scarcely reached the herd,
When the cattle they stampeded, like a hailstorm long they fled,
Then we were all a-ridin' for the lead.

'Midst the streaks of lightin' a horse we could see in the lead,
'Twas Little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead;
He was riding Old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head,
A tryin' to