These seemed to be great favorites with the punchers, and Whitey wondered at it. They were getting less popular with him every minute. Afterwards he learned what may have made them please the men; that almost all the songs sung on the ranges are written by the cowboys themselves, and they may be dismal because of being composed during lonely night rides.
One puncher called "Little" Thompson, who was high and narrow in build—shaped something like a lath, with a face something like an undertaker's—sang at length. First a doleful ditty that went like this:
"Oh! my name it is J.W. Wright, I came from Tennessee.
There was a killin' in th' mountains, th' sheriff got his, ye see.
I left my wife an' babies, them kids I loved so well,
An' I'll find a grave on th' lone prairee,
Oh! pardners, ain't it hell?"
After this had dragged out its weary length he got an encore, and responded with this gem:
"We came up over th' long trail,
Three thousand cattle strong.
Ned Saunders needed a hair cut,
Fer his hair was too darned long.
"Oh, th' night was dark an' stormee,
An' the Injuns round did yell,
So we herded into a canyon,
An' th' sons-o'-guns come like hell.
"Ned lost his hair, he didn't care,
Fer he had lots t' spare,
Oh, te-tumity tum-tum,"—and so on.
There were at least a hundred verses of this last, each verse more deadly dull than the one before, and Little was very conscientious; he didn't slight any of them. Long before he was through, Whitey envied the fate of Ned Saunders. But the evening was only mortal, it had to end, and at last it did.
Whitey must have shown signs of wear, for as they parted to go to bed, Dan Brayton said to him, "Cheer up, it may rain to-morrow," and it did!