Yavipai Pete (Old Iron Pants Pete)

DESCRIPTION: Cowboy Yavipai (Iron Pants) Pete is refused a job because he's not tough enough for the job. Pete lassos a bear with barbed wire, rides it back to the ranch (with a rattlesnake for a quirt) and asks whether he can have the job now. The rancher hires him
AUTHOR: Curley Fletcher
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Curley Fletcher, "Songs of the Sage")
LONG DESCRIPTION: Yavipai (Iron Pants) Pete is described, a rough and rowdy but skilled cowboy. Refused a job by a rancher, who says he's not tough enough for the job, he lassos a bear with barbed wire, rides it back to the ranch (with a rattlesnake for a quirt) and asks whether he can have the job now. The rancher hires him, noting that the bear had eaten the range boss the previous night
KEYWORDS: travel clothes death farming work talltale animal boss cowboy
FOUND IN: US(Ro,SW)
RECORDINGS:
Harry Jackson, "Old Iron Pants Pete" (on HJackson1)
NOTES [32 words]: Jackson reports that this was originally an Arizona song, "Yavipi Pete," but that he and his fellow Wyoming ranch-hands renamed it, "Old Iron Pants Pete" and substituted local place names. - PJS
File: RcOIPP

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