“The cowboy has left the country; his campfire has gone out,” wrote Ben Arnold of Valentine, Nebraska, in 1878. By then, Arnold was no longer bringing cattle north from Texas as a cowboy working for the Bosler Brothers. In 1878, he was freighting for Fort Niobrara in the Nebraska Sandhills, working with John Sutler. Sutler’s tune and Arnold’s 1878 poem has been passed down through the generations. Even Don Edwards has recorded his version of it on Saddle Songs. Arnold wrote this poem
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