“The chorus, when joined by twenty or more bullwhackers who always carried their lungs with them, was indeed thrilling, as was the last stanza, in fact every stanza from the first to the last.
“The last verse ran like this:
“‘The wagon broke down and the cattle all died,
That morning the last piece of bacon was fried.
Ike looked discouraged, and Betsey was mad,
The dog dropped his tail and looked wonderfully sad.’
“Another popular air of the day was:
“‘My name is Joe Bowers,
I had a brother Ike;
We came from old Missouri,
All the way from Pike,
Etc., Etc.’
“A song sang by a California miner who went by the euphonious sobriquet of “Sluice Box,” never failed to elicit encore. It was descriptive of his adversities and trials through the sluice mining country, and the last lines that I remember were:
“‘I stole a dog, got whipped like hell,
And away I went for Marysville.
Then leave, ye miners, leave,
Oh, leave, ye miners, leave.’
“Then the boys used to sandwich in Irish, German and negro melodies, besides drawing upon national and war songs. Among the latter, ‘John Brown’ and ‘Dixie’ were quite popular, but any song with a good, stiff chorus was the proper thing.
“A parody on the ‘Texas Ranger’ was also a popular song, though not so lively and inspiring as the others, being lacking in a chorus. It was a sort of lament of a boy who at the age of eighteen ran away, ‘joined Old Major’s train,’ and started for Laramie. They had a fight at Plum Creek, in which six of their men were killed by the Indians and buried in one grave. In his description of the fight he says:
“‘We saw the Indians coming,
They came up with a yell,
My feeling that moment
No human tongue can tell.
“‘I thought of my old mother,
In tears she said to me:
“To you they’re all strangers;
You’d better stay with me.”
“‘I thought her old and childish,
Perhaps she did not know
My mind was fixed on driving,
And I was bound to go.’
“‘We fought them full one hour
Before the fight was o’er,
And the like of dead Indians
I never saw before;’
“‘And six as brave fellows
As ever came out West,
Were buried up at Plum-Creek,
Their souls in peace to rest.”