Woody Guthrie - Buffalo Skinners Lyrics

Come all you old time cowboys
And listen to my song
Please do not grow weary
I'll not detain you long

Concerning some wild cowboys
Who did agree to go
Spend the summer pleasant
On the trail of the buffalo

I found myself in griffin
In the spring of '83
When a well known famous drover
Come walking up to me

Said, "How do you do, young fellow
Well, how would you like to go
And spend the summer pleasant
On the trail of the buffalo?"

Well, I being out of work right then
To the drover I did say
"Going out on the buffalo road
Depends on the pay"

If you will pay good wages
And transportation to and fro
I think I might go with you
On the hunt of the buffalo

Of course I'll pay good wages
And transportation too
If you will agree to work for me
Until the season's through

But if you do get homesick
And you try to run away
You will starve to death
Out on the trail and also lose your pay

Well with all his flattering talking
He signed up quite a train
Some 10 or 12 in number
Some able bodied men

Our trip it was a pleasant one
As we hit the Westward road
Until we crossed Old Boggy Creek
In Old New Mexico

There our pleasures ended
And our troubles all began
A lightening storm hit us
And made the cattle run

Got all full of stickers
From the cactus that did not grow
And the outlaws watching
To pick us off in the hills of Mexico

Well, our working season ended
And the drover would not pay
If you had not drunk too much
You are all in debt to me

But the cowboys never had heard
Such a thing as a bankrupt law
So we left that drover's bones to bleach
On the plains of the buffalo