Digital Tradition Mirror

Zebra Dun

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Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Zebra Dun

We was camped on the plains at the head of the Cimmaron
When along comes a stranger and stopped to argue some,
Well he looked so very foolish when he begun to look around
For he seemed just like a greenhorn just escaped from town.

We asked him had he been to chuck, he said he hadn't a smear,
So we opened up the chuckbox and said he could eat right here,
Well he filled up on some coffee and some biscuits and some beans
And started right in talking about the foreign kings and queens.

All about the foreign wars on the land and on the seas
With guns as big as steers, and ramrods big as trees.
About a feller named Paul Jones, a fightin' son of a gun
A fighter and the grittiest cuss that ever packed a gun.

Such an educated feller, his thoughts just come in herds,
He astonished all them cowboys with his highfalutin' words
Well the stranger kept on talkin' till the boys they all got sick
And begun to look around to see if they could play a trick.

Well, he said he'd lost his job up on the Santa Fe
He was goin' 'cross the plains to for to hit the Seven D;
He didn't say how come it, just some trouble with the boss
But asked if he could borrow a fat saddle horse.

Well, this tickled all the boys to death, we laughed way down our sleeves
We said we'd give him a fine horse, as fresh and fat as you please.
So Shorty grabbed his lariat and he roped the Zebra Dun
And we give him to the stranger and waited for the fun.

Now old Dunny was an outlaw, he'd grown so awful wild
He could paw the moon down, he could jump a mile;
Old Dunny stood right still there, like as he didn't know
Till the stranger had him saddled and ready for to go.

When the stranger hit the saddle, then old Dun he quit the earth,
And started travelin' upwards for all that he was worth,
A-yellin' and a-squealin' and a-having wall-eyed fits
His front feet perpendicular, his hind feet in the bits.

We could see the tops of mountains under Dunny every jump
But the stranger he was glued there just like the camel's hump;
The stranger he just sat there, and twirled his black moustache,
Just like a summer boarder waitin' for the hash.

Well he thumped him in the shoulders and he spun him when he whirled,
And hollered to them cowboys, "I'm the wolf of the world!"
And when he had dismounted and once more upon the ground,
We knew he was a thoroughbred and not a dud from town.

The boss he was a-standin' there just watchin' of the show
Walked over to the stranger and said, "You needn't go.
If you can use a lariat like you rode old Zebra Dun
You're the man I've been looking for since the Year of One!"

And when the herd stampeded he was always on the spot,
And set them off to nothing, like the boiling of a pot.
Well, there's one thing and a shore thing I've learned since I've been born
Every educated feller ain't a plumb greenhorn.

DT #383
Laws B16
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!