It was in the San Juan Mountains six bold miners they did go,
in search of shining silver hidden underneath the snow,
for gold and shiny silver hidden underneath the snow.
There was Noon and Swan and Humphreys, and Shannon Bell and Miller
and little Alferd Packer too, who was the hungry killer,
hungry little Alferd, so soon to be a killer.
The miners were not mountain men and soon supplies ran low.
They could not go out hunting in the deep and drifting snow,
the savage mountain blizzards and the icy, endless snow.
Now Alferd’s head was made of flint, his heart was even flintier.
He murdered his companions, just to see him through the winter.
He filled his dinner pail with them to last him out the winter.
He was caught and thrown in jail but he soon had broken free,
til they took him Wyoming, in the year of ’83,
in the valleys of Wyoming, in 1883.
He had to face a jury then, twelve loyal men and true.
The foreman of the jury said, “That was an awful stew!”
The foreman of the jury said, “Oh, Alferd, shame on you!
We find that you are guilty and we hope that you will die
for turning your companions all into prospector pie,
for roasting all your comrades underneath a winter sky.”
Then they stood little Alferd up in front of old Judge Gerry,
who felt that Alferd’s eating habits were not sanitary,
and had a grudge, moreover, because Alferd was – so hairy.
“They was only siven Dimmycrats in Hinsdale Countee,
and them five men you et, sir, they was Dimmycrats, you see.
Yea them five votes that you vetoed they was Dimmycrats – like me!”
“So I sintice you, sir, to dangle by the throat
as a warnin’ ‘ginst reducin’ the Dimmycratic vote,
fer tryin’ to make a luncheon of the Dimmycratic vote”.
I think there is a moral here for every politician:
if you can’t get the votes, just get your rival in the kitchen.
You can win elections from the comfort of your kitchen.
Gold dust, gold nuggets, wire silver!
Oh look now Mister Packer what you’ve done!
Gold dust, gold nuggets, wire silver!
You killed and ate your comrades every one.
You son-of-a-gun.
