In her humorous interpretation of the American folk song The Old Chisholm Trail, Rosalyn Schanzer gives kids a snapshot of life on a cattle drive--including flies, dust, bad food, hail, stampedes, and outlaws. Spread by spread, kids can follow the adventures of a few cow hands and a lot of cattle as they make their way up the Old Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. Our hero starts out with a ten-dollar horse and a forty-dollar saddle, and braves all kinds of dangers, including bad food: Our chow is beans and bacon, and our coffee's black as ink. The water's full of mud...It's barely fit to drink. And there's worse: The rain is pouring down and the river's in a flood, And the cattle are a-sinkin' in the quicksand and the mud. There are some positive moments: Red cows, brown cows, spotted steers and blacks, We cross the muddy river by running on their backs. But then they encounter outlaws: There's Evil Eye Pete with a sack full of cash And Mad Mike McGraw with his long moustache! They do get safely to Abilene, where our exhausted hero