As with many traditional songs there are other verses, some of them not fit to print.  In a few places the lyrics seem strained to fit the melody so this is probably a case of new words being set to an older melody – an extremely common circumstance in folk music.  I also can't shake the feeling that I've heard this melody somewhere before but I can't place it.

This song is about the gold rush to the Black Hills region of what later became South Dakota.  This song and others like it express the frustration felt by thousands of men for whom the dream of quick riches became a nightmare of frontier reality.  Throughout the era of westward expansion the US federal government intentionally encouraged rumours of great wealth just over the next mountain.  This was an inexpensive and practical way to encourage citizens to occupy the western territories.  It's been said that you can't claim a territory until you place an eighteen-year-old boy with a rifle on it – those guiding the US in the early years recognized that you can't hold that territory unless his mother and sweetheart are living on it.