A bright eyed filly with a lean grey mare,
Sway backed pot gutted and old.
That had weathered years of mosquitoes
And pawed snow in the winter cold,
Followed a path down a deep ravine
That led to the Little Red,
The bright eyed filly trailing close,
The wise old mare ahead.
The old mare stops her head aloft,
Nostrils spreading wide,
Scenting the breeze from the nearby hills,
To sense what they might hide.
A cowboy comes riding over a hump
With a loop that is hungry and long,
pickin’ his way ‘mongst rocks and sticks,
singin’ a cowboy song.
He sees the filly with the big bright eyes,
The mare with the cones in her tail
And he figures he’ll beat them down to the forks,
And goes slidin’ down the shale.
He stands up a loop in the filly’s path,
a runnin’ like the breeze,
The rope tied fast to his saddle horn,
His hoss goes to his knees.
He ties the filly hard and fast,
Shoos the mare away,
Gentles the filly best he can
Working day by day.
She follows him now without the loop,
Bright eyes meek and mild.
The old grey mare roams the hills,
Lonesome for her child.
And this is the warning I’d give to you,
Mares so grey and old.
Hide away among the hills,
if your fillies you would hold.
For cowboys ride and always will
With a long and hungry loop
And for old grey mares among the hills
They do not give a whoop.