Tying a Knot in the Devil’s Tail

Way high up in the Sierry Petes
Where the yellow pines grow tall
Sandy Bob and Buster Jiggs
Had a round-up camp last fall
They took their horses and their running irons
And maybe a dog or two
And they 'lowed they'd brand all the long-eared calves
That came within their view
Well many a long-eared dogie
That didn't hush up by day
Had his long ears whittled and his old hide scorched
In a most artistic way

Then one fine day, said Buster Jiggs
As he throwed his seago down
"I'm tired of cowbiography
And allows I'm a goin' to town."
They saddles up, and they hits them a lope
For it weren't no side to the ride
And them was the days when an old cow-hand
Could oil up his old insides

They starts her out at the Kentucky Bar
At the head of the Whisky Row
And they winds her up at the Depot House
Some forty drinks below
They sets her up and turns her around
And goes her the other way
And to tell you the Lord-forsaken truth
Them boys got drunk that day

Well, as they was a headin' back to camp
And packin' a pretty good load
Who should they meet but the Devil himself
Come prancin' down the road
Now the Devil he said, "You cowboy skunks
You better go hunt your hole
'Cause I've come up from the Hell's rimrock
To gather in your souls."

Said Buster Jiggs, "Now we're just from town,"
And feelin' kinda tight;
And you ain't gonna get no cowboys' souls
Without some kind of a fight."
So he punched a hole in his old throw rope
And he slings it straight and true
And he roped the devil right around the horns
He takes his dallies true

Old Sandy Bob was a reata man
With his rope all coiled up neat
But he shakes her out and he builds him a loop
And he roped the Devil's hind feet
They threw him down on the desert ground
While the irons was-a getting hot
They cropped and swallow-forked his ears
And branded him up a lot

And they pruned him up with a dehorning saw
And knotted his tail for a joke
Rode off and left him bellowing there
Necked up to a lilac-jack oak
Well, if you ever travel in the Sierry Petes
And you hear one awful wail
Well you know it ain't nothin but the Devil himself
Raisin' hell about the knots in his tail