Four Rode By

Willie Palmer’s stallion was no twenty dollar cayuse
And when the wild ones stole him he hightailed it into town
Ussher in those days was keeping order in the district
But before he’d ridden thirty miles the McLean boys shot him down
Cho: Four rode by
Rode through here
Three Mclean boys and that wild Alex Hare
They were armed
All were armed
It was them I’d have known them anywhere
A shepherd known as Kelly saw the wild one as they passed
They shot him with a rifle and took his watch and chain
When the posse found him in the lonely cabin
A hunger took their pride away and no one else was slain*
They hung the boys in January eighteen eighty three
First time in that province that they’d strung up brothers three
And their sons killed nineteen Germans cross the seas back in seventeen
One thing that’s for damned sure they’re a wild old family