Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail - Michael Martin Murphey

Way high up in

The Sierry Peaks

Where the yellow-jack pines grow tall

Old Buster Jiggs and Sandy

Bob

Had a round-up camp last fall

Well they took along their running

Irons

Maybe a dog or two

And they 'lowed thy’d brand every long-eared calf

That came

Within their view

Now every little long-eared dogie

That didn’t push up by

Day

Got his long ears whittled and his old hide scorched

In a most artistic

Way

One fine day, says Buster Jiggs

As he throws his seago down

«I'm tired

Of cowpiography

And I think I’m a goin' into town.»

Well they saddled up, and they

Hit a lope

For it warn’t no sight of a ride

And them was the days that a good

Cow-punch

Could oil up his insides

Well they started in at Kentucky Bar

At

The head of Whisky Row

And they wound her up at the Depot House

About forty drinks

Below

Well they sets 'em up and they turns around

And they started in the other

Way

And to tell the God-forsaken truth

Them boys got drunk that day

They was

On their way, goin' back to camp

A-packin' that awful load

When who should they meet but

The Devil himself

Come a-traipsin' down the road

He says, «You ornery cowboy

Skunks

You better go hunt for your holes

'Cause I’ve come up from Hell’s rim

Rock

Just to gather in your souls

«The Devil be damned,» says Buster

Jiggs

«Us boys is a little bit tight;

But you don’t go gatherin' no cowboys'

Souls

Without one helluva fight.»

Now Buster Jiggs could ride like hell

And

Throw a lasso, too

So he threw it over the Devil’s horns

And he took his dallies

True

Now Sandy Bob was a reata man

With his gut-line coiled up neat;

But he

Shook her out and he builds a loop

And he roped the Devils hind feet

Well they

Stretches him out and they tails him down

While the running-irons were getting hot

And

They cropped and swallow-forked his ears

And they branded him up a lot

Well they

Trimmed his horns way down to his head

Tied ten knots in his tail for a joke

Then they

Went off and left him there

Tied up to a little pin oak

Now when you’re high in the

Sierry Peaks

And you hear one hell of a wail

Well you know it’s just the Devil

Himself

Yellin' 'bout them knots in his tail