Page:Songs of the cowboys (IA songsofcowboys00thor).pdf/128

Back in the day when I was young, I knew a man named Hods;
He was n’t fit fer nothin’ cep turnin’ up the clods.

But he came West in fifty-three behind a pair of mules
And it was hard to tell between the three which was the biggest fools.

Up on the plains old Hods he got — there his trouble began.
Oh, he sure did get in trouble, — and old Hodsie was a man.

He met a bunch of Indian bucks led by Geronimo,
And what them Indians did to him — well, shorely I don’t know.

But they lifted off old Hodsie’s skelp and left him out to die,
And if it hadn’t been for me, he’d been in the sweet by and by.

But I packed him to Santa Fé, and there I found his mules,
For them dad-blamed two critters had got the Indians fooled.

I don’t know how they done it, but they shore did get away,
And them two is livin’ up to this very day.

Old Hodsie’s feet got toughened up; he got to be a sport;
He opened up a gamblin’ house and a place of low resort;