When the bandit, Chico Cana, crossed the river at Boquillas
Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero
Juan caught up his fastest mare and north to Marathon he rode
To hire himself a gringo pistolero

Spread the word along the river tell it through the borderland
That the Hound of Death is howling after Chico Cana's band
Juan will seal their fate as surely as the rising of the sun
With the guns of the gringo pistolero

The round hat of a trooper cast a shadow cross his eyes
As he listened to the tale of Juan Otero
At the name of Chico Cana there could be no talk of price
Just the Gringo's vow of vengeance Yo arrero

Oil the big Colt automatics with the daylight he was gone
With the coming cold and darkness he rode into Castollon
And a drunken bandit caught there read the message Talk or Die!
In the eyes of the gringo pistolero

Where the Canyon Colorado twists its way among the rocks
And the ribbon of the sky is long and narrow
In a jacal of adobe bruised and tied up on the floor
Wept the young wife of the rancher Juan Otero

Bandit mirrors on the cliff-tops flash the message now He comes
Ask the number of his followers the number of their guns
And the aviso flashed to Chico like the fallin' of a stone
He comes alone, the gringo pistolero

Hidden high above the canyon where the falcon rides the wind
Chico's best hawk-eyed aviso Juan Romero
Put his mirror in his shirt and gazed with worry toward the rocks
Where he last had seen the gringo pistolero

Put the sights up to 800 hold a yard left for the wind
And there's one, by God, aviso that will never flash again!
Weeping red tears from a third eye that the guilty cannot feel
From the Springfield of the gringo pistolero

Chico Cana you have stole your last damn U.S. dollar bill
I have come for you and all you companeros
You can fight and do your damnedest or just send the lady out!
Came the challenge of the gringo pistolero

Bandit rifles down the canyon to the left and to the right
Fearful eyes that watched and waited 'til the falling of the night
Angry cut-throats that ignored the weeping lady weeping on the floor
And through the back door came the gringo pistolero

Big Colt autos splitting Thunder-death at everything that moved!
Flashing lightning in the jacal, long and narrow
Ending hate and greed and cruelty with final flying truth
From the sure hand of the gringo pistolero

When one hot and smoking pistol dropped down empty in the dirt
Then another sprang like magic from inside the gringo's shirt
And the lead-storm never stopped 'til there was no one left unhurt
But the lady and the gringo pistolero

Word has spread to Ojinaga where the Conchos tumbles down
And a man's death can come swifter than an arrow
That although the law be empty words still justice can be found
For no border stops the gringo pistolero

And the old wives tell how Juan's wife came back beautiful and fair
And lived happily through children and years of silver hair
But the young girls say Otero did not treat her well back there
So she left him for the gringo pistolero

When the bandit, Chico Cana, crossed the river at Boquillas
Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero
Juan caught up his fastest mare and north to Marathon he rode
To hire himself a gringo pistolero