I gathered about twenty cows this morning
And moved them through the gate
To the back of our winter range
When I finished up it wasn't too late

So I headed out cross country
Wandering through the pines
Because there's at least another forty head
I still need to find

I didn't find another cow today
Though I covered a lot of ground
I didn't come home empty handed
A mystery I found

On a jack pine ridge on Rocky Lake
On a bed of needles there
Was one old rusty horseshoe
And the bleached skull of a bear

These curiosities I carried home
Found by chance a strange design
The bear's life and death a mystery
But the horse that threw that shoe was mine.