The Dying Cowgirl

I staked my claim out in the West when I was but a boy.
I was out there all alone, no happiness or joy.
I had to fight the Indians as over the plain they roamed.
Old Paint and I we just got back and called that place our home.

We started rustling cattle, just rounding up the strays.
In the saddle all the time, just riding night and day.
And in the stars we trusted them to guide us over the plains,
To guide us back to our old shack with four strays home again.

As I rode out from camp one night a storm was raging high,
The sound of hoofbeats caught my ear, I heard a human cry.
I sat up in my saddle, I turned Old Paint around,
I saw a dying cowgirl a-lying on the ground.

I knelt beside that dying girl, I tried to say a prayer.
I hoped that God in all his love could hear me pleading there.
I saw her blue eyes open, she smiled at me so sweet.
She said that she would wait for me up there where cowhands meet.

And now she sleeps out yonder, out on that lonely range,
Where all the stars watch over her until we meet again.

From Southern Folk Ballads, McNeil
Collected from Louise Sanders, FL 1984
RG