traveling the american southwest, sandburg found the song through western poets margaret larkin and linn riggs. he wrote that the song came to them in santa fe from a cowboy who was last heard of as heading for the mexican border with friends. he described the song as one of a man in harmony with the values of the american west: "there is rich poetry in the image of the rider so loving a horse he begs when he dies his bones shall be tied to his horse and the two of them sent wandering with their faces turned west."