ana, and on the remote cattle ranches of Texas, New
Mexico, and Arizona,--yet survives the Anglo-Saxon ballad spirit that
was active in secluded districts in England and Scotland even after
the coming of Tennyson and Browning. This spirit is manifested both in
the preservation of the English ballad and in the creation of local
songs. Illiterate people, and people cut off from newspapers and
books, isolated and lonely,--thrown back on primal resources for
entertainment and for the expression of emotion,--utter themselves
through somewhat the same character of songs as did their forefathers
of perhaps a thousand years ago. In some such way have been made and
preserved the cowboy songs and other frontier ballads contained in
this volume. The songs represent the operation of instinct and
tradition. They are chiefly interesting to the present generation,
however, because of the light they throw on the conditions of pioneer
life, and more particularly because of the information they contain
concerning that unique and romantic figure in modern civilization, the
American cowboy.

The profession of cow-punching, not yet a lost art in a group
of big western states, reached its greatest prominence during the
first two decades succeeding the Civil War. In Texas, for example,
immense tracts of open range, covered with luxuriant grass, encouraged
the raising of cattle. One person in many instances owned thousands.
To care for the cattle during the winter season, to round them up in
the spring and mark and brand the yearlings, and later to drive from
Texas to Fort Dodge, Kansas, those ready for market, required large
forces of men. The drive from Texas to Kansas came to be known as
"going up the trail," for the cattle really made permanent, deep-cut
trails across the otherwise trackless hills and plains of the long
way. It also became the custom to take large herds of young steers
from Texas as far north as Montana, where grass at certain seasons
grew more luxuriant than in the south. Texas was the best breeding
ground, while the climate and grass of Montana developed young cattle
for the market.

A trip up the trail made a distinct break in the monotonous life of
the big ranches, often situated hundreds of miles from where the
conventions of society were observed. The ranch community consisted
usually of the boss, the straw-boss, the cowboys proper, the horse
wrangler, and the cook--often a negro. These men lived on terms of
pract