Honest and upright and square
But he turned to a gunman and a gambler
And a bad woman took him there
Quicker and surer in gunplay
Till his heart and his body lay dead
When old Carol insulted her picture,
Jim filled him full of laughter.
All night long we trailed him
through Mesquite and Chaparral,
as I saw him pitch and fall.
If she'd been the pal that she should have,
He might have been raising a son,
Instead of out there on the prairie,
To die by a ranger's gun.
Now death's slow sting did not trouble
As the light in his eyes grew dim
But where we were putting his
body was all that were a gem
And as we all grouped around him,
the blood from his wounds flowed red
He lifted his head on his elbow,
then he whispered to me and said
Bury me out on the prairie
So the coyotes can howl on my grave
Don't leave me here in the badlands
From the varmints my bones flee safe
Then bury me deep in the ground
And cover my grave all over
With boulders huge and round
So we buried him out on the prairie,
and the coyotes still howl o 'er his grave.
But his soul is now resting
from the unkind touch she gave.
There's many a lonesome cowboy
who'll ride with that pile of stones.
Then think of some similar woman
And envy Jim's moldering ball
