An’ everyone was huntin’ fer the fortune-makin’ grease;
When a poor man pushed and elbowed ’gainst the oily millionaire,
An’ ‘the devil take the hindmost’ seemed the all-pervadin’ prayer.
“An’[An’] we hed formed a pardnership, jest Tom an’ Jim an’ me,
That was properly recorded as the ‘Tough and Hungry Three,’
An’ hed gone an’ leased a portion of some hard an’ rocky soil
That we thought looked like the cover of a fountain filled with oil.
An’ we set the drill a’goin’ on its long an’ greasy quest,
That meant so much or little to the capital possessed.
Our money was all in the well, in Providence our trust,