st one of the three
I put him out on spike;
I then took the mountain road
So the people would not smile,
And it took fourteen days
To travel thirteen mile.

But I got there all the same
With my little three-up spike;
It taken all my money, then,
To buy a mate for Mike.
You all know how it is
When once you get behind,
You never get even again
Till you damn steal them blind.

I was an honest man
When I first took to the road,
I would not swear an oath,
Nor would I tap a load;
But now you ought to see my mules
When I begin to cuss,
They flop their ears and wiggle their tails
And pull the load or bust.

Now I can tap a whiskey barrel
With nothing but a stick,
No one can detect me
I've got it down so slick;
Just fill it up with water,--
Sure, there's no harm in that.

Now my clothes are not the finest,
Nor are they genteel;
But they will have to do me
Till I can make another steal.
My boots are number elevens,
For I swiped them from a chow,
And my coat cost dos reals
From a little Apache squaw.

Now I have freighted in the sand,
I have freighted in the rain,
I have bogged my wagons down
And dug them out again;
I have worked both late and early
Till I was almost dead,
And I have spent some nights sleeping
In an Arizona bed.

Now barbed wire and bacon
Is all that they will pay,
But you have to show your copper checks
To get your grain and hay;
If you ask them for five dollars,
Old Meyers will scratch his pate,
And the clerks in their white, stiff collars
Say, "Get down and pull your freight."

But I want to die and go to hell,
Get there before Livermore and Meyers,
And get a job of hauling coke
To keep up the devil's fires;
If I get the job of singeing them,
I'll see they don't get free;
I'll treat them like a yaller dog,
As they have treated me.

And it's home, dearest home;
And it's home you ought to be,
Over on the Gila,
In the white man's country,
Where the poplar and the ash
And mesquite will ever be
Growing green down on the Gila;
There's a home for you and me.

THE ARIZONA BOYS AND GIRLS

Come all of you people, I pray you draw near,
A comical ditty you all shall hear.
The boys in this country they try to advance
By courting the ladies and learning to dance,--
And they're down, down, and they'r