Don Edwards

Zebra Dun

Don Edwards


Tom: D

D

[Verse 1]
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We were camped on the plains at the head of the Cimmaron
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When along came a stranger and stopped to arger some.
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He looked so very very foolish that we began to look around,
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We thought he was a greenhorn that had just escaped from town.

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We asked him if he had he been to breakfast; he hadn't had a sniff;
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So we opened up the chuck-box and told him help himself.
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He took a little beefsteak and some biscuits and some beans,
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And then began to talk and tell about foreign kings and queens,

[Verse 2]
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He talked about the Spanish War and fighting on on the seas
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With guns as big as beef steers and ramrods big as trees,
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And about old Paul Jones, a fighting son of a gun,
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And he said he was the grittiest cuss that ever pulled a gun.

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Such an educated feller, his thoughts just come in herds,
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He astonished all them cowboys with them jaw-breaking words.
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He just kept right on talking till he made the boys all sick
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And they began to look around just how to play a trick.

[Verse 3]
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He said he had lost his job out upon the Santa Fe
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And was going across the plains to strike the 7-D.
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But he didn't say how come it, just some trouble with his boss,
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But said he'd like to borrow a nice fat saddle hoss.

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This tickled all the boys to death; we laughed down in their sleeves
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Said that he could have a horse as fresh as he would please.
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So shorty grabbed a lasso and he roped the Zebra Dun
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And led him to the stranger as we waited for the fun.

[Verse 4]
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Now Old Dunny was an outlaw he had grown so awful wild
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He could paw the white out of the moon every jump for a mile.
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And he always stood right still, just like he didn't know
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Until he was saddled and ready for to go.

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Now the stranger hit the saddle, and old Dunny quit the earth,
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He went straight up in the air for all that he was worth.
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A-bawlin and a-squalin, and having a wall-eyed fit,
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With his hind feet perpendicular, and his front ones in the bit.

[Verse 5]
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Now we could see the tops of trees beneath him every jump,
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But the stranger he was growed there just like the camel's hump;
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And he sat up there upon him and curled his black moustache,
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Just like a summer boarder a-waiting for his hash.

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Now he thumped him in the shoulders and spurred him when he whirled,
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He showed us flunky punchers he's the wolf of this old world.
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and when he had dismounted once again upon the ground,
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Why we knew he was a thoroughbred and not a gent from town.

[Verse 6]
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Now the boss he was standing and a watching all the show,
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He walks right up to him and he asks him not to go
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"If you can use the lasso like you rode the Zebra Dun,
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Then you're the man I've looked for ever since the year of one."

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Well he could use a lasso and he didn't do it slow;
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The cattle they stampeded he was always on the go.
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A one thing and a sure thing that I learned since I was born,
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Every educated feller he ain't a plumb greenhorn!