The days of yore — both good and ill
Was happy days for Braggin' Bill.
" In former times, " said Bill, " a man
Jest had to be more subtile than
The sissified and sickly jays
Of these plumb tame, downtrodden days.
In sixty-nine, " says he, " when I
Was young, adventuresome and spry
A feller had to be possess't
Of marv'lous fortytude out West.

" In sixty-nine or there about
When I was but a simple lout
I ran nine hundred steers — alone —
To Denver up from San Antone.
'Twas in the winter that I went
With that shebang of discontent
Through deserts bleak and blizzards bitter
And never lost a single critter.

" One night when I was thus engaged
While tempest howled and blizzard raged
A bothersome event occurred,
A thousand wolves attacked the herd.
But such a grim emergency
Was not a thing to baffle me,
Them days a feller was prepared
For such events, I wasn't scared.

" With courage modern herders lack
I charged into that savage pack
A flingin' snowballs left and right
At them fierce critters with all my might.
The blizzard raged so frigid thick
It wasn't hard to do the trick,
I ketched the snow a swirlin' round
Before it ever tetched the ground,

" And fashioned into balls them flakes
As hard as rocks — for goodness sakes —
And flung 'em with such deadly aim
I slew a thousand wolves with same.
And saved them critters' every gizzard
From ravin' beasts and ragin' blizzard,
Which wasn't toilsome, glory be,
For such a cunny coot as me. "

No saddle yaps, I know, could fill
The noble boots of Braggin' Bill.