ABSTRACT
Subsequent printing by broadside presses tended to reduce the story somewhat, but the general narrative and much o f the early poetry has remained. The full story is as follows: two or three butchers are riding along the highway carrying a large sum o f money - often given as five hundred pounds. (A more common American opening involves not five hundred pounds but a journey o f ten thousand miles.) The butchers hear a cry and find a naked woman bound to the ground. She explains that she has been robbed and left there by robbers. One o f the butchers, usually Johnson, covers her with his coat and takes her up behind him on his horse. As they ride along the highway she screams or in some manner gives a signal, at which a band o f robbers springs out in ambush and commands Johnson to halt. A fight ensues in which he kills most o f the robbers before being stabbed from behind by the woman. His companions have usually disappeared from the scene by this time. The woman is punished and Jo h n so n ’s death is lamented.
