Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail

Oh way up high in the Sierra Peaks
Where the yellow-jack pines grow tall
Sandy Bob and Buster Jiggs
Had a round-up camp last fall

They’d taken their ponies and their runnin’ irons
And maybe a dog or two
And they allowed their brand on every long-eared calf
That come within their view

Now many a long-eared dogie
That didn’t push [brush?] up by day
Had his old ears whittled and his old hide sizzled
In a most artistic way

Now Sandy Bob, he said one day
As he throwed his seegar down
“I’m tired of this cow-ography
Cowpiography
And I allows I’m goin’ to town.”

Well they saddled their ponies, and they struck ’em a lope
And how them boys did ride
And them was the days that an old cowboy
Could oil up his old insides

Well they started out at the Kentucky Bar
At the head of the Whiskey Row
And they wound up down at the Depot House
About forty drinks below

Well they set ’em up and they turned ’em around
And they went the other way
And I swear the God-forsaken truth
Them boys got drunk that day

They mounted up and they headed to camp
And they was packin’ a pretty good load
When who should they meet but the Devil himself
Come prancin’ down the road

Well the devil said, “You ornery skunks
You’d better hunt your hole
’Cause I’m the Devil from Hell’s rimrock
Come to gather in your souls.”

Sandy Bob said, “Devil be damned
We may be a little bit tight
But before you gather any cowboy souls
You’re gonna have a helluva fight.”

He swung his rope, and he swung it straight
And he also swung it true
He caught the Devil by both his horns
And taken his dallies too

Now Buster Jiggs was a riata man
With his rawhide coiled up neat
He shook it out, he built him a loop
And he lashed the Devil’s hind feet!

Well they stretched him out, and they tailed him down
And the irons was a-gettin’ hot
They cropped and swallow-forked his ears
And they branded him up a lot

And they left him there in the Sierra Peaks
Next to a blackjack oak
But before they left, they tied some knots
In his tail, just for a joke

So if you’re ever up there in the Sierra Peaks
And you hear one hell of a wail
It’s just the Devil a-bellerin’ about
The knots tied in his tail!