Buffalo Skinners - Woody Guthrie

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

Came 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 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

The 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 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