Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

<p class="tit-song">COLE YOUNGER <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page106" name="page106"></SPAN>(p. 106)</span></p> <p>Am one of a band of highwaymen, Cole Younger is my name;<br/> My crimes and depredations have brought my friends to shame;<br/> The robbing of the Northfield Bank, the same I can't deny,<br/> For now I am a prisoner, in the Stillwater jail I lie.</p> <p>'Tis of a bold, high robbery, a story to you I'll tell,<br/> Of a California miner who unto us befell;<br/> We robbed him of his money and bid him go his way,<br/> For which I will be sorry until my dying day.</p> <p>And then we started homeward, when brother Bob did say:<br/> "Now, Cole, we will buy fast horses and on them ride away.<br/> We will ride to avenge our father's death and try to win the prize;<br/> We will fight those anti-guerrillas until the day we die."</p> <p>And then we rode towards Texas, that good old Lone Star State,<br/> But on Nebraska's prairies the James boys we did meet;<br/> With <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page107" name="page107"></SPAN>(p. 107)</span> knives, guns, and revolvers we all sat down to play,<br/> A-drinking of good whiskey to pass the time away.</p> <p>A Union Pacific railway train was the next we did surprise,<br/> And the crimes done by our bloody hands bring tears into my eyes.<br/> The engineerman and fireman killed, the conductor escaped alive,<br/> And now their bones lie mouldering beneath Nebraska's skies.</p> <p>Then we saddled horses, northwestward we did go,<br/> To the God-forsaken country called Min-ne-so-te-o;<br/> I had my eye on the Northfield bank when brother Bob did say,<br/> "Now, Cole, if you undertake the job, you will surely curse the day."</p> <p>But I stationed out my pickets and up to the bank did go,<br/> And there upon the counter I struck my fatal blow.<br/> "Just hand us over your money and make no further delay,<br/> We are the famous Younger brothers, we spare no time to pray."</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />